"The real Harman story is about Israel intelligence operations directed against the United States which have brought about the systematic corruption of the America’s political system by a foreign power aided and abetted by friends strategically placed throughout the government and the media. Just imagine if Harman had obtained either senior intelligence position that she sought. She would have had access to every sort of top secret intelligence possessed by the US government and would have been in a good position to influence policy. From the Israeli perspective, she would have been their spy, a highly placed agent of influence who could also provide every bit of sensitive intelligence in the CIA cupboard. The apparent fact that she agreed to help an agent of a foreign government and was to be rewarded with advancement makes her something like Kim Philby, the British spy of the 1960s who progressed through his own system while secretly working for another country, Russia. Philby was a whole lot smarter, but the essential betrayal was the same. Those who argue that Israel is no Cold War Russia miss the point, as the national interests of the U.S. and Israel are far from identical, particularly after a series of right-wing governments in Tel Aviv has culminated in the current monstrosity of Netanyahu-Lieberman. " Giraldi
————————————————————————————–
This requires no comment from me. pl
Giraldi’s entire piece is worth reading. This is a touchy and troubling situation which needs more exposure.
In a tie-in with the earlier story about the death of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel William Bennett, here is Wayne Madsen’s latest that sets out how much at odds US and Israeli interests can be:
This makes me immediately associate to the JSF hack and the timing of the “outing” of Harman. But its purely conjecture. That scandal disappeared way fast, it hasnt even reached Norwegian media and we are going to buy loads of them there planes.
Treason is the word that keeps popping in my head too. Take 5 minutes to look at major media/blogs and the issue is nowhere.
This corrupt relationship is just as bad for Israel as it is for America – because it hasn’t had to make the tough, necessary decisions given its geography and the demographic trends, it finds itself is in an untenable, evermore dangerous position.
I did want to add, you have mentioned earlier about how anti-semitism is largely a thing of the past in this country. I would vigorously disagree with that, and additionally, us Enlightenment types need be constantly vigilant against the next epidemic of anti-semitism in this country.
As one sick of the corrupt and frankly pathetic relationship between USA and Israel, I would say also that I heart Jews and especially American Jews (really the only Jews i know.) American Jews have been and are a huge ‘value add’ to this crazy country of ours. That should be celebrated as much as our relationship with Israel should be condemned.
Is it prominent American Jews who must lead us out of this moral desert? no doubt.
MRW:
Please supply a link or reference for the detailed article that you related concerning the late Lt Colonel Bennett and US Patriot technologies. I can find nothing accessible on the Wayne Madsen website. I am not familiar with this individual, but my initial search led me directly to the report appended below with which I was not familiar… and which I must admit is very, very hard to accept at face value (or at any other level, for that matter…).
Just to be perfectly clear: I fully accept the possibility that Israel is stealing American technology and is then selling that information to our potential military adversaries… though I believe the latter is as unlikely as is the idea that someone like Dennis Ross or Jane Harman or Rahm Emmanuel is actually a spy for Israel rather than just another influential person with complex loyalties that can lead them to make improper, irresponsible, and potentially treasonous decisions.
Thank you.
PS: I have deliberately not yet researched to see how this story played out in 2007 because it’s too disturbing to even consider…
“B-52 Nukes Headed for Iran, Not For Decommissioning: Airforce Refused
Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater
By Wayne Madsen
Sept. 24, 2007
Author’s website
WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.”
Colonel,
I think there is a typo in the above, since Kim Philby defected to the USSR in the early 60’s, should not it be then that his spying days were the 40’s and 50’s ?
With regards to Israeli spying in the US, is it still secret exactly what Jonathan Pollard was up to ?
Regards,
In the United States, the only widespread antisemitism that is acceptable is directed towards Muslims. Who is it that is leading America deeper and deeper into this moral desert?
Col. Philby spied for the USSR.
Hey, if the death of Bennett is linked to Israeli espionage… isn’t that… uh, very big news?
from “Why did the Harman case break now?”
“…The specific reason the story is coming out now is that my side, the critics of the Israel lobby, are about to lose a battle: it looks like the case against Steven Rosen and Ken Weissman, the Israel lobbyists charged with sharing secrets with the Israelis five years ago, a case postponed forever, is going to get dropped by the Justice Department. The lawyers who believe in that case are surely upset about this and have managed to leak one of the big truffles of their investigation to the press so as to goose the public outrage over the central issue at stake: corruption of policymaking due to the Israel interest. I don’t know that they’re the source. But that’s my supposition.
We may lose this fight, but we are winning the larger battle. Remember that We lost the Chas Freeman fight, the nomination of an Arabist/realist to the National Intelligence Council, but we won that one too because he freely exposed the Israel-first gang that had gone after him. Suddenly the Israel lobby was on the front pages…”
by Philip Weiss. He writes for The New York Observer and The Nation
Do the Israelis steal our technology & sell it to the Russians, I wonder, or is Israel honeycombed with dual Russian-Israeli nationals who spy for Russia?
There are lots of poor Russian immigrants in Israel. They would be easy to recruit.
“We may lose this fight, but we are winning the larger battle.”
I wonder.
Decades of penetration and one prosecution.
Elliot Abrams, the only jailed Iran-Contra alum served the last Administration. But he was only convicted of perjury, and no predicate crime.
Now who was it refused to even be recorded or sworn, and blithely got away with it? And by it, I mean lying unsworn in camera, not the litany of crimes and war crimes they apparently committed subsequent to that reassuring session.
So go ahead and do the crime without worrying about doing time for IT, but never lie under oath.
People’s attention spans are very short. The economic bottom is nowhere in sight. And summer can be so soothing to pesky cognitive dissonance, the news is so gloomy. . .
Until prosecutions routinely unfold, until shameless hacks and treasonous elites are routinely exposed and publicly reviled – that is, when Rush shuts the #$%& up after being kidnapped and tied naked to the Golden Gate Bridge – and the UN sanctions Israel, well, winning one battle is a nice thing to reflect upon while facts on the ground unfold apace. Which I see include further demolition and illegal expansion in East Jerusalem.
We need to learn to deter Israel, and prosecute it when indicated. Which really requires dismantling your incumbency and enforcing the rule of law in the U.S. The latter would generally disinfect the latter, were it but applied. I am at a loss to see how this could be allowed to happen by the incumbent proprietors short of Revolution.
Imagine if resources equivalent to the entire War on Drugs were applied to divining and normalizing your relationship with Israel. The investigation. The intelligence and espionage tools. The $30,000 per inmate per year spent on the statistically stable percentage of addicts in a population with the rest to publicly fiance elections while you retake your government… That kind of thing.
A long way from making lemonade out of “we are about to lose a battle”
Dave of Maryland:
The Rodina always treats its’ subjects as citizens, regardless of their feelings, pronunciamentos, immigration status, or physical addresses.
You say ” They would be easy to recruit.” That’s precious; that’s like trying to recruit Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as an arsonist, once she bolted from the barn and was found munching on burnt offerings, miles away.
They work as one; it is transparent. The new world order is Globo World. You have something of value, you sell it to those in need; all this maudlin, OBE, nationalistic, we’re allies verbiage, notwithstanding.
Information is Power; you NEVER give it away.
Dave of Maryland:
Yes.
Laura Rosen wonders if this is all about pushback from former Bush-era DCI, Porter Goss. She reports that a former senior U.S. intelligence officer wonders anonymously:
Ron Kampeas at JTA has more…
FastEddie & Minnesota –
So that explains it! The money we spend on our military subsidizes all the others.
Since we rarely use them ourselves, what difference does it make?
JBV,
us Enlightenment types need be constantly vigilant against the next epidemic of anti-semitism in this country.
Define anti-semitism.
Is it:
(1) national: anti-Israel?
(2) political: anti-Zionist? anti-Likud Party?
(3) religious: anti-Jew?
(4) economic: anti-foreign aid?
(5) constitutional: anti-spy?
(6) isolationist: pro-American national interest?
(7) whatever helps sound the alarm and win the argument?
Colonel, you will not approve
it, but it doesn’t changes the fact. that most of the comments above are nothing else than anti-Israeli (anti-Semitic) conspiracy fantasies.
Norman Cone(or whomever you are)
I can make a case for your statement that many of the comments here are ant-Israeli. Your statement is intended to intimidate people into silence and to drive such comment from the public square, but, no matter. We are all grown ups here.
Your statement that such comments are anti-Semitic is more interesting. Does that mean that Israel and Jews are the same thing? Does that mean that Israel should be given anything it wants becasue it was created as a religiously based state? Most of the Jews there are not religious.
What of the opinions of the many American and other Jews who do not approve of Israeli actions, attitudes and policies? Are they merely “self hating?”
Are the only good people zionists like you?
Come clean. Your name is not Norman Corn. Act like a man. Tell us who you are. pl
Norm,
Next time, before you write a post, make sure to look up your dictionary before waisting out time: anti-Israeli is not synonymous with anti-semitic.
It is perfectly fine for Americans to find objectionable that any country, Israel, like any other, would spy on us or use the technology we send them to defend themselves to undermine us.
Colonel, I never said that all Jews are Israelis, or religious, or Zionists. What I said is, that most if not all the speculations, American Jews are spying for Israel and/or Israel is selling/forwarding American military secrets to the Russians are pure anti-Semitic conspiration
fantasies. That you are
spelling my name Corn and
not Cone is not my fault.
Pat:
I have three questions regarding the unpleasant turn that this discussion has taken:
(1)Do you agree that it is possible to defend Israel’s existence in terms conducive to American security (as well as Israel’s) while also criticizing the cumulative mistakes (and worse) that may have been committed by various Israeli governments?
(2)Do you agree with the statement appended below that was made earlier by one of your commentators?
“This corrupt relationship is just as bad for Israel as it is for America – because it hasn’t had to make the tough, necessary decisions given its geography and the demographic trends, it finds itself is in an untenable, evermore dangerous position.”
(3)Do you agree that it applies in principle, and perhaps to the same degree, when considering US relations with other nations such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea, or even Europe, in general?
I am not at all prepared to go so far as “Norman Cone” who clearly suggests that Israeli and Jewish identity are indistinguishable, but I would agree that MRW is as guilty of a dubious rhetorical amalgam in the queries that preceded (and I not an unwillingness to document the far more concrete, serious, and inflammatory story recounted earlier in this thread).
I would agree that it is as difficult for a Jewish-American to deny a central connection as it would be for an African-American to ignore his or her racial origins or for a descendant of the Confederacy to acknowledge a ‘difference’ that does not simply disappear with the passage of time…
… but doing so conscientiously, rather than as a paranoid reflex, is the hard part.
P.S. The posters are not naming Elliot Abrams, Steven Rosen, Ken Weissman, Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel etc. because they are Israelis.
They are Americans, but they are Jews and therefore suspect or guilty in the their eyes. That’s not anti-
Semitic ? Saying it as it is makes me a suspicious Zionist?
Gee, and I thought this was about cows. Count me slow.
Norman Cone,
Israel wasn’t invented until three years after the Holocaust ended, so how is anti-Israel being anti-semitic or anti-Israeli being anti-semitic?
Thanks for the Giraldi piece – it is very interesting.
Just read a fascinating article in the new May Smithsonian magazine about spy George Koval. Iowa-born and US Army trained, he got lucky in being in the right place at the right time, finding info on polonium for nuclear bombs and passing it along to the USSR in the 1940s. Because of the anti-Semitic campaign of early 50s Soviet Union, he was no hero there. Was he a double agent? He never moved to Israel…
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/42961262.html
Norman
I apologize for mis-spellingyour name. I would never confuse you with someone like David Corn whom I think of as a friend. My assumption i sthat you are a gentile zionist and that you write from a sense of desire to see fair play.
I am the referree here. I will not debate you. pl
@MRW
Didn’t you now that anti-semitism existed long before the Holocaust and didn’t end with the establishment of the state of Israel. By-the-way: Israel wasn’t “invented”. It did exist already a couple of millenia ago. And let me make it clear : being anti-Israel is in most cases identical with being anti-semitic.
batondor
The US is vunerable to Israeli/zionist manipulation because the US suffers from a PC attitude about minority political influence, guilt over the fate of European Jewry, and a confusion over whether or not Jewishness is merely another American religious “tag,” more and more devoid of real meaning except among the born again or a second national identity with claims on purposeful action on the part of a group identity denied to other Americans.
Eventually, the cost of these problems will weigh heavily.
I think “norman” is actually a propagandist seeking to act as provocateur but I could be wrong. pl
All that is needed is an accusation of anti-semitism and the other contributors to the thread become defensive and self-concious and the theme of the thread is lost.
It is a tactic that is now so widespread and general that it usually has little meaning and other members of the thread should simply ignore it and carry on with the subject of the thread.
Norman Cone,
The modern state of Israel was invented by the UN in 1948 in the midst of a country known as Palestine. Check the map collection at the University of Texas. Herzl called it Palestine; similarly the Zionist leaders before WWII. The Balfour Declaration called it Palestine: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
Your definition of anti-semitism is your personal invention and choice. Yehuda Bauer, Director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel, does not agree with you. I give him more credence.
johnf
my earlier comment on Norman’s motive was ironic. In fact the objective here, as it usually is, is intimidation intended to silence discussion in the public square. pl
Israel has an acute\chronic problem in that it’s modern foundation as a state was through the successful application of mass terrorism followed up with a continuous decades long campaign to portray the victims (The Palestinians) as ranging from ignorant , misguided peasants fit only to work for starvation wages in Israeli farms and factories to dangerous vermin who if not eradicated threaten the entire human race and civilization as we know it.
The central founding myth of the modern Israeli state is that it was agreed upon and set up by the United Nations.
Not true,
The farms, businesses and homes of several million people (The Palestinians) were taken over and occupied by another people… (The Jews\Zionists)… and the only way to do that, the only method that has ever worked was to use mass terror to drive out the Palestinians.
When I think of the situation of the Jews at the end of the second world war and the founding of the Israeli State I always come back to what a wise Jewish writer once wrote about it.
He described his people as someone struggling in the water after a shipwreck at sea who see’s a life boat, swims to it, climbs aboard and finds it nearly full of people who are already there.
Once aboard he pulls out a gun, orders the bulk of everyone on board over the side into the water and orders the rest, at gunpoint to man on the oars on half rations.
Israel, as a nation and a people cannot come to terms with what they did to secure the lands they now occupy…. and what they continue to do to retain hold of it.
The guilt is too great and too recent.
I’m not surprised that the majority of Young Israeli’s, when polled, express a desire to immigrate far away,
I’m not surprised that the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia list Germany as their preferred choice of emigration destination over Israel.
Something Israel has formally objected to the German government about.
DaveGood
MRW……
You almost have it right except that….
The UN agreed the state of Israel should be established within the Land of Palestine IF under a plebiscite, the inhabitants voted for it.
The vote was held, the vote was NO.
Therefore the UN resolution failed and the UN had \has nothing to do with the foundation of Israel.
What made the difference was the declaration of one man alone, the president of the USA that he would recognise the State of Israel no matter what.
A decision that so outraged the US negotiating team at the UN at the time ( Who had sworn that the US would abide by the results of the plebiscite) that they threatened to resign on mass.
The State department had to send a high powered delegation to New York to force them back into line.
The myth that the UN created Israel is just that, a myth.
DaveGood
the same kind of tactic is being used in other blogs – eg. Helena Cobban’ JustWorldNews. I was wondering what takes so long for the pro-Israel crowd to start an action on Colonel Lang’s forum. It was only a matter of time.
We still have freedom of speech in this country. Let’s use it and not be silenced by fear. Intimidate the intimidators.
Thanks, Dave. Only knew a quarter of your correction, and therefore had it wrong. I appreciate the details.
All
The “Norman Cone” routine is tried ouit on me periodically.
If I were more important they would move on to moister methods. pl
“The posters are . . naming Elliot Abrams. . beacuse they are Israelis.”
Norman Cone, you don’t know what the hell goes on in my squirrel cage, or why I type the words I type, you sure as hell don’t know how or what I think, you presumptuous fellow.
I named Eliott Abrams because he is a singularly jailed and storied fellow traveler and tool of Power. Who despite Justice popped up to play a supporting role in the previous criminally inclined administration.
Which happened to arm, fund and enable rampant Israeli criminality.
Which I repeat, reportedly continues with illegal Israeli construction in Occupied East Jerusalem as I type.
Anybody making an observation of human interaction on transnational scale who considered the possibility, if not probability, that cohorts sharing ethnic, tribal, social, or religious characteristics might tend to more easily share ends, integrate into group or sustain mission cohesion would be making a more informed observation.
You have previously mischaracterized my anger over Gaza as hatred and bid me psychiatric consultation. I have yet to see you address a single pointer in this forum; you merely heckle the pointers.
What is your point? What facts do you wish to discuss about Mr. Abrams, aside from his religion? It is his and his ilk’s criminality I am interested in. If any of them are Jewish, or Israeli, well, I’m content to let the courts take what notice of those facts, IF ANY, the administration of justice deems appropriate.
Of course, I understand, you may find the concept of Justice applied to Israel, or Jews, or whatever conflation of the two you bandy about distasteful. I just don’t care, or scare, any more.
Mr. Norman Cone or whoever the hell you are– your precious Israel has hurt my U.S. in soooo many ways that Israel deserves to be drug out in the middle of the ocean and dropped there, permanently. My U.S. has bent over backwards for the ungrateful snit we know as Israel only to have Israel undermine U.S. national security at every turn just so they can make a buck, at the cost of endangering American lives.
Mr. Cone, you can take your treasonous piece of dirt known as Israel and keep it, cause it has hurt my U.S. and endangered those I love.
The subject of this thread was Jane Harman, her possible treason, and how AIPAC can apparently appoint the next Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
This is an important matter. The MSM has already dropped it. It is important we keep discussing it and exchanging with each other new developments in the story.
We must not be sidetracked.
Norman Cone,
the problem the people here do have with Israel is that it spies aggressively in the US, and successfully conducts information and influence operations in the US, that are detrimental to the US national interest.
Stealing stealth, missile and radar data and selling them to Russian and China is detrimental to the US interest. You will find it hard to argue with that. Influence operations, a classical thing that intelligence services do, are also activities that go beyond mere legitimate lobbying. The case of Harman puts this in the national spotlight. Elliot Abrams is just one of a number of people who can be considered prime candidate of a domestic supporter of such Israeli activities.
The animus against him is probably also fuelled by the fact that he, a convicted felon, was allowed to serve in the government again.
Then, as for Israel itself, I find it hard to believe Israeli protestations that they only want peace with the Palestians, when they are building settlement after settlement on territory that they under international law have no right to build on. If one looks at the current Israeli cabinet it is hard to see that this is going to change.
Personally I give a rats ass whether there was an Israel two and three millennia ago. The re-foundation of Israel owes more to a quite secular Israeli romantic nationalism than to anything else. The narrative that the holocaust as the ultimate pogrom is the reason for the foundation of the State Israel is merely a a post facto justification.
Just dropping in because of the nasty turn Mr. Cone sought for this thread. I’m a jew, my favorite cousin is israeli, etc… and there is nothing antisemitic about being furious that Israel — a country we have been very, very good to — continues to carry out influence operations against us and spies on us.
Colonel – I love the gradus comparativus to the adjective moist – I never have heard it used in English – but it is appropriate, and harks back to the description of old KGB methods. I hope that you are too well known for these methods to be used without serious repercussions…
That famous anti-semite Jon Stewart on the Harman/AIPAC scandal:
http://tinyurl.com/dy6tkm
(Hilarious)
Couldn’t agree more that America has corruptly coddled more than one country into a terrible predicament (Saudi Arabia is perfect example.)
This brings up more profound notions of what are USA long term interests and what do we hope to get in exchange from our relationships with countries with which we do business. I’m in marketing i’ll leave that to the experts.
But nobody in their right mind would ever say that USA gets more out of its relationship with Israel than it puts into it. To paraphrase urban slang – cracker please, America is basically bankrolling and offering carte blanche protection for Israel’s colonial fantasies. (Yes i know USA had some of those recently that we will be cleaning up from until…) Why are we doing this? Who cares? The only issue, for those of us who want the books balanced, is when is it going to stop? (ha ha.)
Yeah Norman, I hear you.
You see the craters of Gaza and the little round hole in a wall a katusha makes in southern Israel on the news, well its so clearly apples and oranges what could it be but antisemitism to show that together, let alone discuss it outside the news, compare and contrast.
Not to worry johnf.
Rebuttal, even to gibberish, is practice, limbers us up for the outside public debate.
Now I and some of my circle now waste the time of some Israel’s army of Coneheads, katsas and shills who work so diligently to monitor and steer public debate. Here in Canada at any rate, public opinion is less inclined to look away from sustained illegal expansion and disproportionate use of force against its captives.
I noted, with horror, that Dennis Ross is on the loose–traveling around the Persian Gulf and other Arab capitals, in his official capacity as special advisor to the Secretary of State on Gulf and Middle East affairs. I have no doubt that Ross’ goal is to preemptively sabotage any negotiations with Iran, and any progress by George Mitchell on the Israel-Palestine track. After all, he is an illegally unregistered agent of the Israeli state. Although he was obliged, by law, to register as an agent of the Israeli government, under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, between 2001-2009, while he served as Chairman of an organizational subsidiary of the Jewish Agency, Ross never once registered, as far as I can tell. That is a crime. It should have disqualified him for any post whatsoever in the Obama Administration. Common sense would have eliminated him from any job related, in any way, to the Middle East.
Just to review the facts, that I first discovered on this very website, several months back: For the past eight years, until moving into the seventh floor of the State Department earlier this year, Ross was chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a formal arm of the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency is a core part of the Israeli state, holding the ownership of all of the public land in the State of Israel, maintaining veto power over all legislation, before it goes to a vote in the Israeli knesset. There is no ambiguity in U.S. law about the role of the Jewish Agency as an organ of the Israeli state. Twice in the 1960s, the Jewish Agency was slammed by the U.S. Department of Justice. A front group, set up by the Jewish Agency, was forced to shut down, because it was an unregistered lobbying arm of Israel, and, as such, was forced to register under the FARA. That front group was shut down–and replaced by AIPAC, the very lobby that sent Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman to spy for Israel at the Pentagon.
Ross ran the JPPPI from its inception. He was on the payroll of the Jewish Agency, the Israeli government. He should be forced out of the State Department, prosecuted or otherwise sanctioned for failure to register as a foreign agent, and made a public example. Instead, he is cavorting around the Middle East, claiming to represent President Obama, when in fact, he is more likely representing Bib Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.
I have asked, repeatedly, how Ross got his State Department post. I have been told that Hillary didn’t want him, and President Obama didn’t want him–but AIPAC did. There were two or three meetings with high-powered AIPAC people with Obama representatives in New York, before he got the job, and that was where it was sealed.
The Department of Justice could do a world of good, by enforcing the FARA, starting with the case of Dennis Ross.