Mondoweiss tweets AIPAC
Follow Phil (or Adam)'s great Tweet-length observations from the AIPAC conference here.
Get their longer commentary, as usual, here.
The AIPAC Spy Case
A much smaller news item competing with these sensational stories was that the U.S. Justice Department announced that it is dropping the espionage charges against two former AIPAC agents. The story was so small that it barely was a blip on the media’s radar, bringing absolutely no comment on the network news and talk shows.
Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman had been charged in 2005 with the crime of espionage; specifically, handing over to Israel secret information they had retrieved from Larry Franklin, who was then a policy analyst in the U.S. Defense Department, working for Douglas Feith and for Paul Wolfowitz.
Franklin pleaded guilty to relaying top secret information on Iran to Rosen and Weissman, and was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison, a term he is currently serving.
Eric Holder does a Marc Rich redux as Barack, Hillary and the other AIPAC stooges are prancing around the stage kow-towing to the real power in Washington DC.
Can they really not know what they look like to the 300,000,000 Americans they are betraying?
John Francis,
You seem to think the case might have been won on its merits. Considering the information the AIPAC staffers passed is unknown to the general public, I don't see how you can have in informed opinion regarding its "capacity to harm the United States" or how "closely guarded" it may have been - ie the two criteria necessary to establish 'espionage' according to the statute.
So are you psychic? Do you maybe have top secret clearance yourself? Or can the Evil Lobby simply be presumed guilty in cases like this (if in fact there were any other "cases like this"?)
Personally I'd say your contempt for due process was downright un-American! But then you'd probably just say I was also in the pocket of the Zionist Lobby, right alongside both houses of Congress, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Rotarians.
Franklin gets 15 years but Rosen and Weissman walk. The least they could have done was take their dupe with them when they walked.
What is striking about this case is that whilst these two are not prosecuted, and should not have been, the stream of utterly incomprehensible prosecutions of muslims for contributing to charities, hooking up banned TV stations and other such nonsenses, runs on without interruption or protest.
My own view is that these rather nasty likudniks have done nothing which should be illegal: they have wierd racist opinions and are paid to promulgate them, (warmongering is all in a day's work in such evil circles) but such things are not crimes.
It isn't a crime to support illegal settlements in the West Bank. But it is a crime to send bedding and medical supplies to Gaza for the victims of white phosphorous shells supplied by the USA and used with its permission.
Sometimes the law is not just an ass but a rabid skunk.
vadim,
in Justice system the criminal will get the full sentence and hard one, also those who helped the criminal and made him or encourage him in anyway to do the crime will be hold account for their actions.
As for this case here what they were doing:
While Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman trafficked in facts, ideas and rumor, they had done so with the full awareness of officials in the United States and Israel, who found they often helped lubricate the wheels of decision-making between two close, but sometimes quarrelsome, friends.
"They often helped lubricate the wheels of decision-making": lubricate -- delicate word. But the wheels were oiled by grease that had to be smuggled in; and somebody must have been slowing down those wheels for the lubricant to have become necessary.
Franklin gets 15 years but Rosen and Weissman walk. The least they could have done was take their dupe with them when they walked.
I believe that Larry Franklin got 12 years, but why quibble. Here is a link to an interview that Channel 10's Gil Tamari conducted with Steve Rosen that was aired last night in which he explains the case, including how the Feds coerced Franklin into pleading guilty:
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=634828&TypeID=1&sid=126
I'm sure the feds coerced Franklin into pleading guilty; gave them cover for letting the people who received his information walk. I'm sure there is an elaborate case for institutionalized Israeli spying on the US being "a good thing".
It stinks. It's prima facie evidence of the corruption of the US government at the hands of the Israel Lobby.
According to Paul Craig Roberts it will shortly be "illegal" to criticize Israel. That, of course, will be "the best thing" of all.
I tried to follow up on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (HR 256, 262, 1913) but have yet to find anything remotely resembling what Paul Craig Roberts described in his essay at counterpunch.
I have written asking for clarification, but have yet to receive same.
Mr. Paul Craig Roberts should not let his anti-anti-Semitic hormones interfere with his I.Q. as he does in the article referenced :
"The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.
"The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?"
___
The absurdity is run-of-the-mill. Neocomrade L. Franklin solemnly promised not to disclose classified information and then foreswore himself. Whether the information disclosed was of any use or interest to the Tel Avîv statelet (or to anybody else at home or abroad) is immaterial to the wrongness of what L. Franklin did wrong.
To prosecute neocomrades S. Rosen and K. Weissman would raise an entirely different question.
Even if it did not, Mr. Roberts ought to have tried to think rigorously for a change. The way he tells it, L. Franklin was found "guilty of giving secrets" to "two Israeli agents" BEFORE it had been established that S. Rosen and K. Weissman were in fact agents of any Power more foreign than AIPAC.
"Guántanamo Bay jurisprudence," that tripe and baloney ought to be labeled!
"Since we all know they are evil terrorists down there, it would be absurd to extend to them the usual due process during a trial meant to establish whether or not they are evil terrorists. Q.E.D." (Right, sure, OK, what's wrong with that? Who could possibly object?)
A pleasure to find that PCR is a jerk about economics too!
Happy days.