"A big-shot Hollywood producer who for decades was working as an Israeli spy and arms dealer has defended his actions and said it was 'exciting' being his country's 'James Bond.' Arnon Milchan, 68, who's famous for smash hit movies including 'Fight Club' and 'Pretty Woman,' spoke openly for the first time about his espionage work in an Israeli TV special that aired Monday night. The program reveals Milchan, at the special request of his friend Shimon Peres, who is now the country's president' set up and operated some 30 companies in 17 countries that helped Israel obtain parts and plans for its nuclear project in the 1980s. He brokered deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the show. 'I did it for my country and I'm proud of it,' Milchan said of his work for Israel's now-defunct spy unit Bureau of Scientific Relations" Daily Mail online
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According to this story, Shimon Peres recruited this man to spy on the US nuclear program and to illegally export nuclear materials using a corporation created specifically to obtain such materials from the US Government for the purpose of illegally exporting them to Israel to use in their nuclear weapons program. These materials included "triggers" for nuclear devices as well as fissile material itself.
This story has quickly disappeared from the US media scene. There was nothing about it in the Washington Post today. If he had spied for the French do you think that would have happened?
This man has lived in the US for forty years and became a billionaire here. He says that his country is Israel and that he is proud of what he did. He should be prosecuted for espionage and illegal export of military materiel. He would make a great cellmate for Pollard. If memory serves they worked for the same Israeli technical espionage unit.
Milchan knows that his influence in the administration or any administration is or would be so great that he will never be prosecuted. That is why he boasts on Israeli television of various felonious crimes in the US. I am sure the FBI would love to get their hands on this guy but know they never will.
De Niro says he knew about this? The FBI should have a chat with him as well. pl
Of course the real secret is almost total cooperation formal and informal between the US and Israel in the Israeli nuclear program from inception.
Is Israel an unsinkable aircraft carrier? NO!
WRC
You are absolutely wrong. The US government has never “cooperated” in the Israeli nuclear weapons program. That is why Israel recruited spies to steal information and material from the US. With regard to the unsinkable aircraft carrier nonsense they have always been very careful to abstain from making any commitments to us. pl
Many if not most Israeli nuclear physicists trained in USA!
Did not President Wilson [perhaps naively] want to end all secret treaties secretly arrived at?
Did Mr. Pollard have dual citizenship?
Concur, he should be prosecuted. But that will never happen, as you know.
He is getting on in years, perhaps he might have an accident, though.
What is Mr. Milchan’s citizenship?
Incorrect
It was France, starting back in the late 50’s (I always say that Ben Gourion’s only copy of the Protocole de Sèvres for the Suez fiasco of 1956 must have been a good threat to get the French to cooperate. Germany sold them some H/W later on (IIRC- need to confirm) plus whatever was stolen 9Gone missing is the excuse) and spirited out of the US.
Once de Gaulle started to make good with the Arab countries of the ME after Algeria, he wanted that cooperation to stop but some people in Quai d’Orsay have been and are still pro-Israel.
Phew!
I understand that Arnon Milchan was the producer or moneyman for Oliver Stones “JfK” movie and I guess I understand why he financed that movie, that didn’t mention Israeli nukes at all.
But: “These materials included “triggers” for nuclear devices as well as fissile material itself.”
That I find quite shocking. So far I thought the triggers for the Israeli nukes were developped by GKSS in Geesthacht, Germany. So far, I thought, the reason that the people in Geesthacht have leukemia due to some radioactive PAC balls they found in their gardens after one of the experiments of GKSS went wrong was that these experiments were made for Israeli nuke triggers.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch#Mutma.C3.9Fliche_Sonderexperimente_auf_dem_GKSS-Gel.C3.A4nde_in_Kr.C3.BCmmel
But now it seems that Israel didn’t do at all such experiments for triggers in Germany for Israeli nuke triggers. So, I wonder, what were these faulty experiments in Krümel that caused leukemia in Geesthacht really good for?
Isn’t it more likely the Israelis and Chinese worked together on weapons development (miniaturization, testing, etc)? They both had the same interests at the same time.
Harking back to an earlier post re JFK.
Did he really press for weapons inspectors at Dimona in the months before he was murdered?
bandolero et al
See IrMep’s long effort to document the whole “triggers” affair. pl
WRC
His citizenship(s) would not be a factor in charging him with espionage and illegal export. pl
WRC
He did not at the time of his crime. I was on the JCS damage assessment board. I believe he has been given Israeli citizenship and renounced his US citizenship. pl
WRC
There is no secret treaty with Israel. pl
Colonel Lang,
Where are the Bush era torture thugs
when we need them?
Nightsticker
USMC 1965-1972
FBI 1972-1996
All
http://www.irmep.org/cfp/11252013milchan_fara.pdf
pl
Google Richard Smyth along with Nuclear Triggers and Milchan pops up.
You are right..nothing in the Post or the NY Times…but mentioned in CNN, USAToday, Variety and even Fox.
With people like Milchan — and Sheldon Adelson, and Jeffrey Goldberg — I am baffled. Do they not realise that they are courting a backlash? Are they really as witless as they appear to be?
Part of the reason this item hasn’t been as widely picked up in the media as one might wish or imagine is because it is a very old story. Milchan is indeed proud of himself, and more or less said so several times on “60 Minutes,” which aired stories years ago after numerous press reports. This story is also detailed at some length in “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, which came out in the US in 2011.
rst
That doesn’t mean a damned thing. He is still a criminal and should be prosecuted. pl
No doubt, and I hope it happens. Nor is he the only shady Israeli movie producer in Hollywood. Far from it. I’m just referring to why some editors, right or wrong, might not see it as a timely story.
And if the Feds ever did get interested, why stop with Milchan or other Israelis? According to last week’s UK Independent, “Milchan also revealed that he received help in his covert activities from other Hollywood figures, including the late director-producer Sydney Pollack, [director of Tootsie, Out of Africa, 3 Days of the Condor etc] whom Milchan claims knowingly assisted him in several arms deals.”
Pollock’s dead, but who are the “other Hollywood figures”?
That doesn’t mean the US supported the Israeli nuke program. If an Edward Teller, Baruch Cinai or Zalman Shapiro went over and violated their security clearances, that’s not exactly cooperation.
Please point to some declassified American government documents that indicate cooperation, because we’ve been looking for those for a decade.
There is no statute of limitations on a charge of Tron!
There is some open source information that Israel has not just enriched uranium but also plutonium!
WRC
Tron? pl
rst
Let us all know when you find out. You know where to find me. Happy Thanksgiving. pl
It’s timely for this reason:
When an unauthorized book about Milchan came out last year, both Netanyahu and Peres told Milchan not to talk about it.
Now he’s blabbing and pulling stars onstage. So the question is:
1. Did Netanyahu and Peres release him to blab? Is this part of the Israeli tantrum over the Iran deal?
2. Is Hollywood the vehicle for Israel to now become a declared nuclear power? Milchan could be a trial balloon for assessing US attitude and seeing how it all plays in the media that much of the *unauthorized” material, tech and know-how transfers came from the US.
It’s a story.
As far as I know, Krytrons are needed for implosion type weapons (ie: plutonium) which require multiple detonators to be fired as near as possible to exactly the same time.
Sorry PL! “Treason” not “tron”! Typo!
WRC
so far as I know he is not an American citizen and therefore could not be tried for treason. pl
All
There are many Jewish Americans here on SST. I grieve with you. pl
Many Chinese nuclear physicists and rocket experts were also educated in US (and in some cases, wound up in PRC due to circumstances not always of their choosing). Would you say that US supported PRC’s nuclear and missile programs?
All I can say is, this could have all been detected and stopped but was not. It seems we have serious problems as relates to our dealings with Israel. We need to distance ourselves from them – they are not Americans and couldn’t care less about us except in areas where they can use us.
Just arrogant is my guess.
Where would that backlash start David? In the broadcast media, in the dead tree newspapers, on talk radio; ownership is content control. And the ownership of old media is not about to allow any examination or backlash. Adelson gets a pass, Soros gets one too, the second stringers like Blitzer and Goldberg and Cohen … The Fox mouths controlled by Murdoch; none of the above will ever see a backlash from the “respectable” foreign owned media.
Pollard was jailed, the Liberty was covered up, and Milchan gets a pass too.
Freedom to create backlash against a hostile intellectual minority would require that some non minority own a printing press or a broadcast network; and be willing to face the outrage and power that 66 years of inertia and subornation have acquired.
They are not witless, they understand that at least for the important future the internet will not impede them. And they own enough democratically purchased congresspeople that should it appear that the internet might have some actual negative effect; regulations will appear to further neuter this media as well.
Days after Pollard’s arrest, I received a phone call from a friend who was working for then-Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger. He asked to meet me right away at Charlie’s Place, a bar in Maclean not far from the CIA. I met him there and he showed me a piece of paper with a list of names. He explained that he was working for the SecDef’s general counsel and that they believed that there was an “X Committee” of high ranking DoD officials who were feeding document IDs to Pollard to steal. The list of names was a who’s who in the neocon apparatus then in the Pentagon and who returned again under Bush 43. Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Wurmser, Wohlstetter and even Fred Ickle were on the list of suspected allies of the Lekem agent Pollard.
The point is that the system was so heavily penetrated by dual loyalists who deluded themselves that American and Israeli security interests were actually identical, and that there was no conflict between being an American patriot (ie. neocon) and an Israeli spy. This madness persisted long before Pollard and well after. The penetration runs so deep that it is almost invisible. Hollywood, as it became a font of political financing and cultural power, was a natural target. The ADL takes local police and sheriffs on free junkets to Israel to indoctrinate all and recruit some. Back in 1992, a major scandal erupted when it turned out that local San Francisco police officers were spying for Israel on anti-apartheid and civil rights groups (pro-Palestinian). There is no spying so petty as to be missed in this vast web.
Col. Lang is absolutely correct that this behavior, combined with Netanyahu’s obvious hatred of any U.S. government that fails to do Israel’s bidding, is creating a very ugly backlash. In the minds of the rightwing Zionists, any Jew who prefers the United States to Israel is deserving of whatever they get, so they don’t care about backlash. They welcome and relish it. In my view, every case of gloating espionage should be treated as Pollard was treated. President Reagan did not try to intervene to lighten the scandal when Pollard was caught. He clearly understood, as did Weinberger and at least some at the Department of Justice, that espionage is espionage and there is really no such thing as friendly espionage. It is understandable that Germans are furious that the NSA was spying on Chancellor Merkel’s personal cell phone and other aspects of her private family life. Is an Israeli spy any less of a traitor to the U.S. if he happens to have a talent for making movies? I don’t think so.
Not witless per se IMO, just self righteous enough to delude themselves on this.
Self righteousness is something transcendent. They have seen the light and need not to bother with anybody else’s opinion any more, be it that of other Americans, law enforcement or a judge.
PS: I think that boasting these exploits is trying to generate a sense of Israeli heroism, meant to recruit other talent for the cause.
Look I was an arms dealer, embargo buster, smuggler and Israeli spy (in brief, as far as US law is concerned, a criminal qualifying for a triple digit sentence) – and made a fortune and am a hero in my country, Israel!
That alone ought to be reason enough for the US to prosecute and indict that man and bar him from ever returning to the US. Fine him for embargo busting. Maybe freeze some of his assets. Or seize them under forfeiture laws (which I think are odious, but that’s another issue). There is, considering the overreach of US law enforcement, quite a lot of things the US can do with him, if they wanted.
If you read the wikipedia article you cite you find that other explanations are possible, see Euroclus Studie, which make at least as much sense sense as the theories of release of sufficient amounts of radioactivity.
Israeli leadership decided to be even more “open” about their “non-existant” nuclear program. And what it can do. Might a test of one of their intermediate-range ballistic missiles be in the offing? Or perhaps another South Atlantic “flash” just to let everyone know who they are and what they are capable of? Reinforcing their deterrent capability by demonstrating its existence seems logical in the wake of a US-Iran rapprochement on the nuclear front.
RP
What, if any, are the connections between Milchan and the Clintons? Hollywood is one of their favorite fundraising venues. If there’s a connection I can see another firestorm (after al the shouting of Benghazi! dies off) in the electioneering to come.
I may get a slap on the back of the head like in NCIS but, when 20% of Congress take freebies from the State of Israel and its facilitators in the US wrt annual summer trips to Israel, one wonders as who call the shots.
Every prospective Presidential candidate must go to Israel before the primaries as if they need to get the blessings of some high priests.
Sadly, we are witnessing the same M.O. in Canada
Yes.
JFK asked that Ben Gurion open up Dimona for regular inspections, doing so at first in person in New York in 1961, then through increasingly insistent letters. The last one was dated June 15, 1963. Kennedy urged that a first visit should take place immediately, followed by regular visits every six months, otherwise “This Government’s commitment to and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardized.”
See The Samson Option by Hersh, written way back in 1991
MM, CK, CP:
The events of this summer have made me think that the internet may be – I do not go beyond that – becoming more powerful than I had earlier thought. A pattern has become very visible in the U.K., where articles in the MSM generate a great deal of comment from people who are clearly drawing heavily on the internet, so that the journalists involved are brought into close contact with a frequently extremely sceptical readership.
Looking at the ‘best rated’ facility on the ‘Mail Online’ and ‘Telegraph’ sites in particular, the visceral hostility to the idea of intervention in Syria was very evident – as also was the very strong suspicion of the role of Israel. The dynamic which produced the unexpected Commons vote against intervention resulted in substantial measure, I think, from similar people contacting their MPs. Both MSM journalists and politicians are under pressure from a growing ‘peasants’ revolt’ among people who are, not uncommonly, articulate and informed.
My impression has been that something similar was happening, but to a somewhat lesser extent, in the U.S. Filtering the comments on Tom Friedman’s column on Ari Shavit’s recent book ‘My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel’, however, I was struck both by the consistent scepticism of the ‘Readers’ Picks’, and the way this clearly reflected recent events.
In his book, Shavit describes the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Palestinian town of Lydda, and goes on to argue that ‘Lydda does not make Zionism criminal’. The most recommended comment picks this up, suggests that most if not all nations have committed ‘great crimes’, but argues that the problem with Israel’s is that ‘it is a crime presently continuing.’ The second most recommended observes that ‘Israel does not have the right to try to draw the U.S. into the middle east to do their dirty work’, and that ‘we have been used for decades by Israel.’
Part of what you may be seeing here, I think, is Netanyahu’s cocking a snook at Obama over the settlements, and his inability to realise that after the Iraq disaster fresh attempts to embroil Americans in Middle East wars are not exactly warmly received by everyone, coming home to roost. It may mean that Friedman is likely to have to confront the fact that the kind of liberals who have been traditional allies of Jews in the United States as in Britain have been turning against Israel for reasons which have nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
(See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/friedman-something-for-barack-and-bibi-to-talk-about.html )
Both arrogance and an – intense – self-righteousness certain enter into the behaviour of people like Adelson and Milchan. But the effect of these things is that these people really do live in a bubble. They have got so used to the successful employment of a combination of bribery, intimidation and moral blackmail to silence dissent that I do not think they can realise the impact that a statement like ‘I did it for my country and I’m proud of it’ is likely to have.
This is not ‘dual loyalty’ – which is partly unavoidable condition for many in the modern world, and increasingly tragic for a growing number of Jews – it is a clear statement that he never had any loyalty to the United States at all.
Colonel Lang,
A comment on the ‘Mail Online’ report suggested he had dual nationality. Does anyone here know whether this is right or wrong?
Harper,
‘The point is that the system was so heavily penetrated by dual loyalists who deluded themselves that American and Israeli security interests were actually identical, and that there was no conflict between being an American patriot (ie. neocon) and an Israeli spy.’
This hits a crucial nail on the head. In the nature of things, it would be unlikely that the security interests of the United States and Israel would in all circumstances be identical. To attempt to resolve problems of conflicting loyalties by pretending that they always have been and always would be compatible, inevitably, meant that those doing so could not think straight either about the interests of the United States or about those of Israel.
Ironically, if people like Perle and Wolfowitz had been unambiguous ‘Israel Firsters’, like Arnon Milchan and Sydney Pollack, they might not have been so muddle-headed, and their actions might not have been as damaging alike to the interests of the United States and of Israel.
Dear Mr. Habakkuk:
“With people like Milchan — and Sheldon Adelson, and Jeffrey Goldberg — I am baffled. Do they not realise that they are courting a backlash? Are they really as witless as they appear to be?”
I too think it’s arrogance and self-delusion by these individuals and Bibi. As you know MENA isn’t my area of expertise, but this NYT article had grabbed my attention earlier this month.
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/israel-increasingly-courting-china-as-an-ally/
One question that still remains unanswered for me is the threshold point for some of the prominent neoconservatives in recognizing the divergence of US and Israeli national interests. I had raised this question a few years ago here. Back in 2004, Israel’s contract to update Harpy UAVs for the PRC had led to a fairly big row according to Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/pentagon-denies-seeking-yaron-s-dismissal-1.144238
And an op ed piece by Ze’ev Schiff followed shortly thereafter.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/selling-arms-to-china-or-not-1.144834
I admit I could be very naive about this, but I still believe most neocons are patriotic Americans albeit terribly misguided. If push comes to shove as Bibi seems to suggest two weeks ago, I wonder if that would be too much even for the likes of Feith and Wolfowitz. I’m hoping if others with direct information could fill some gaps on this.
IRmep,
A good question. My sense is that tantrum is quite likely. It may be that the Israelis can see an advantage in abandoning the ambiguity they have cultivated for decades, and making an open statement of what everybody knows. But I have difficulty seeing how they could think they have anything to gain by owning up to having a large nuclear arsenal at this point.
It seems to me clear that Netanyahu and his ilk have got so used to assuming that the U.S. is ‘a thing you can move very easily’, as he said at Ofra back in 2001, that the emerging signs that this may be ceasing to be so are liable to create panic.
A desire to reassure themselves that their assumption of omnipotence is still valid, because the consequences of facing up to the way the world is changing are too traumatic, may perhaps be a more plausible explanation of what is going on than Machiavellian calculation.
A central fact both about recent Israeli governments and the American Israeli lobby is that while they can be tactically very astute, there are utterly inept at strategic thinking. Time and again, failure to understand how stupid these people really are causes misunderstandings of what is actually happening.
Perhaps “nudge nudge, wink wink” is a bit difficult to locate in the archives.
Andrew
If that means that you think the US government was secretly cooperating with the Israeli nuke program you are very mistaken. They stole our things and information because they had to. Does your statement imply that you think Israeli espionage and subversion in the US are OK? pl
DH
Perhaps panic over waning influence inspired Milchan’s outburst on TV. pl
DH
In re AM’s citizenship I have asked Hersh. pl
Mr. Habakkuk:
I think you’ve put your finger on an important phenomenon; the increasing ability of people to converse amongst themselves, without fear of reprisal, and compare notes. The growing understanding that certain kinds of skepticism are commonplace is an empowering thing.
And yet my MP, a true believer, must contend with ever more demands for her take as our Member on the appalling governance and foreign policy Mr.Harper has ginned up. As David Habakkuk observes the ever better informed and documented non-professional commentariat are getting restless enough to make the most craven of pols have second thoughts on the wisdom and infallibility of Dear Leader. You can shoot the messenger but you can’t shoot your constituents.
Is there not some kind of federal or international anti-proliferation law to apply. What was all the fuss over Dr. Khan, didn’t he see the inside of a cell for bit?
As I remember, A Q Khan was put under house arrest for a little while. Sometime after 9/11 when Bush Administration people wanted to talk to A Q Khan about the reach of his network, President Musharraf refused to allow it flatly and absolutely. As I remember.
It appears to me that there were no serious national controls over these materials – and businesses were merely eager to make money – we apparently had no system – in essence, we lost it. This is terribly depressing.
That’s the constant refrain from the pro-Israel crowd, including Walter Pincus at the Washington Post. However, after making the claim that USACE supported the Israeli nuke program last year, WAPO walked it back when it was formally denied.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-28/world/35508382_1_u-s-army-corps-usace-israeli-air-force
If there was any truth to the “US supports Israeli nukes” canard, documentary evidence would have surfaced by now.
I simply find it hard to believe that no counter- intell agencies were able to grasp this deep manipulation… I mean we are talking about nuclear proliferation are we not. OT, thank you for the outstanding work you do sir.
“… one wonders as who call the shots.”
As someone who contacted his representatives when the US government was trying to get involved in Syria, I think the US citizens can still call the shots, when and if they wake up. I think the uproar over Syria scared the Washington elite and they would like everyone to go back to sleep.
Andrew
In my experience US counterintelligence has no difficulty in detecting such activity. what happens after such detection is that the politicians in the US government then order the professionals to desist and to not prosecute. It does not seem to matter which party is in charge. the Zionists have thoroughly infiltrated both. pl
Where I stand this day! The USA is probably the last best hope of mankind! But we are not exceptional and not the “city on a hill” that some believe. The polity in the USA make many mistakes! Some out of good intentions but still mistakes.
Not oddly perhaps most of the world’s peoples and leaders understand that the real “great Game” is the USA and its leaders and peoples policies and decisions.
The question now for me is does the USA have existential threats to its future, and if so what and if not why not?
Is one of those threats Israel, and if so why and if not why not?
CIA counter intelligence was trying to recover from the J. J. Angleton situation during this period wasn’t it? He was bounced in 1975. CIC was dissolved in 1961. Since 1975, counter Intelligence has not been a priority.
If my count is correct, there are now 10 named agencies which share and overlap on counter intelligence and another 18 with intelligence gathering responsibilities. My cynicism says that each of them has at least one dual loyalty/dual national in its upper echelons.
CK
You are a victim of self serving CIA journalism driven propaganda. People like Ignatius, etc. The FBI, DIA CI, the armed services, all knew in depth of Israeli penetration and manipulation using US nationals. That has been true for fifty years. The inability to root our this cancer is entirely a matter determined by illegal but skillful Israeli/AIPAC political operations. These operations are quite similar to the COMINTERN infiltration of Hollywood in the 20s and 30s. I repeatedly tried to interest the FBI in the obvious Israeli/Zionist penetration of DoD and was told at the Deputy Director level that they were powerless to do anything. pl
SAC Brat
I do hope that you are right . Just in case you haven’t seen this:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/191419-nuke-deal-strains-relations-with-big-jewish-donors
This is only for one party.
Beaver. The Zionist apparat routinely uses the threat of withheld donations to control their stooges. They do the same thing with pressure on media bosses with regard to advertising. *erle once said to me in a TV studio that they had me frozen out and no longer worried about me. If you look around at the sub-ministerial level in the Executive Branch you will see how well they have done. pl
In the 20’s there were 5 majors in Hollywood.
The ownership and control of each was the same as the ownership and control of the 2013 media empires.
It was infiltration but the doors were opened wide by the people at the top.
I have tried to read everything legally available on J. J. Angleton and his career. Some folks have written glowingly of his performance others have called him a paranoid drunk and a “wrecker.”
There are television dramas and movies that supposedly chart his career; each with a different agenda from different backers.
Hanssen and Ames thrived after he was retired by Colby.
What does appear incontrovertible is that Angleton started the relationship between the CIA and Mossad and Shin Bet.
He said that to your face? Astonishing.
And yet they’re losing their ability to manufacture consent. That has to be a bit gratifying to see.
All If you want to accept the dominance of the Zionists over the Goy animals then you are free to do so. pl
Accept?
That dominance is not even allowed to be acknowledged in polite American company.
To acknowledge is to be labeled and once the label is affixed it is tough to be heard.
There are 535 congress people. 34 of them have
automatic dual citizenship. They are the only over-represented religious or racial minority in the congress. Is it surprising that congress is trying mightily to derail the Iran agreements?
Without recognition of reality there can be no rejection or reclamation.
It does not surprise me that bureaucrats find themselves powerless. The President wannabes have to prostrate themselves and be vetted; it should not be surprising that lower level bureaucrats have also had to pass approval.
SB,
My wife and I did the same but both senators and our representatve informed us that they knew better than us. All three were prepared to vote yes on attacking Syria.
Regards,
SH,
We have had signifant problems in the area of controls before:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-03-26/news/36791585_1_nuclear-warheads-nuclear-missile-nuclear-weapons
I believe SECDEF Gates made removed AF SEC Wynne and a general or two over the transported missiles but I am not sure if anyone at DLA suffered a similar fate.
Regards,
CK: Where (book, article, documentary, thesis, etc) is that conclusion most clearly indicated, in your estimation?
Ulenspiegel
Yes, I know these. After the accident there were made huge efforts to cover things up.
The Euroclus study in effect just says leukemia could have many causes. An explanation why and how from a near nuclear power plant and research facility small balls of nuclear fuel got into peoples gardens was not given in that study.
It was just ignored, and the government even flatly denied the PAC balls containing nuclear fuel which people found in masses in their gardens. But the PAC balls were there, and people living there even brought them to Belarus for analysis to get analysis results from out of the German system.
We have met the enemy and they are us, and it may be too late to reverse this frightful trend.
Colonel Lang,
If Perle — I presume that he is who you meant — said that, it confirms my longstanding impression that he is a fool.
These people have learned nothing from Soviet history. For a long time, certainly, ‘muffled zones’ can be sustained. But in the end they collapse, and then there can be the mother and father of backlashes.
As I said on an earlier thread, if I was someone like Perle I would be cautious about sending people like Tyler to fight in unwinnable wars.
The “drunk and wrecker” thesis is elaborated upon in Tim Weiner’s 2007 Legacy of Ashes.
Mangold, Martin, and Weiss in there separate books paint a more nuanced but also more positive
picture.
I have read them all and others where Angleton is not the main topic. I honestly do not know what he was but he was intriguing.
David H.
The head of my supervisory committee in grad school was an anthropologist who was Jewish. I learned from watching him that superior intellect should not be assumed. Among the other people on the committee was a German leftist who was of an ancient Prussian military family. His wife was Jewish and this German nobleman was completely blind to the defects of his colleague who kept insisting that I must be of Jewish ancestry. It was his explanation for my brain. The graf kept saying that I was just like his Bundeswehr cousins. pl
Mr Habakkuh ,
Your observation regarding Perle( or any other neocon “clean break ” true believer) being ill advised starting another unwinnable war to send Tyler to is exactly on point . Our collective experience and subsequent outrage regarding the Iraq War is still palpable here in These United States . That is precisely why we did not go to Syria. While Tyler and me may very well wind up agreeing to disagree about gay marriage, and other issues we are locked step in not wanting another war in MENA . I must also agree with Tyler ,you & others that the AIAPC Hasbara historical grip on our MENA foreign policy has been exposed for what it is – counterproductive to These United States best interest . IMO it does not really matter if Mrs Greenspan,Robin Wright, or any other media Hasbara continues to slant the MSM news – there are just to many other outlets like here at SST not to continue to expose the stranglehold the American Likud has had on our Country . Further IMO – this has opened up the politic space to try to get a nuclear deal with Iran – despite Israel’s protestations . We shall see.
I think Perle (as a representative neocon) has little to fear from men like Tyler. He’s likely to get elected and help put an end (for awhile at least) to the careers of a number of neocons. It’s the others who feel the same sense of futility and betrayal and won’t express it in a forum like this, or in civic action, that men like Perle should fear. Perhaps that is why Obama and company are continuing the NSA data collection on Americans; and the inevitable profiling (undoubtably including that of veterans.)
Neil Richardson,
What you say raises a whole range of questions. As I wrote in response to a comment by ‘Harper’, my sense with a lot of the neocons is that they have evaded the problem that loyalties may conflict by convincing themselves that Israeli and American security interests are identical. If one cannot abandon a necessarily nonsensical proposition, it becomes difficult to think straight.
The result has been a total shambles, with ignoramuses like Wolfowitz and Perle deluding themselves into believing that American power could transform the Middle East in ways which people who actually had any relevant ‘local knowledge’ knew were pure fantasy. And, in any rational concept of the art, and science, of politics, it is ‘local knowledge’ which is critical: rather than abstract theorising of the kind that the late Albert Wohlstetter practiced.
The result is a situation which I — lacking relevant ‘local knowledge’ – find difficult to read. But if indeed this Milchan episode is indicative of anything more than an Israeli spy preening himself, and if the Israeli government is foolish enough to disregard U.S. concerns about Chinese power, then issues to do with ‘dual loyalty’ may, ironically, become particularly difficult for neocons to handle.
DH
People like *erle, my academic committee chairmen and the rest are so filled with supercilious arrogance that they never consider the possibility that truly outrageous behavior can be self-defeating. *erle was so happy to tell me that i was screwed that he looked childish. He and several others had spent month talking to editors, producers, etc telling them the lie that i was a foreign agent for one of the Arab states. I know that to be true because one of the media men who posts here told me. then you have people like the German professor who are so beaten down and defeated that they just submit. pl pl
Thanks for the answer and information.
Yes, Angleton is certainly intriguing. I was hoping that someone, somewhere, had done the heavy lifting on him that is needed.
Fred
Is Richard Perle running for Congress?
Really, flattered Fred that you think I’m uh ‘civilized’ enough to run for office, hah. It’s something to look into but I think my personal opinions wouldn’t fit neatly into any mold and I’d be pidgeonholed as another wackjob. Who knows what the future holds though?
I think Mr. Habakkuk and Alba Etie have the right of it though. You sow the storm, you reap the whirlwind.
Colonel Lang,
I think back to two Jews I knew, one slightly, one well, who had made it over here just before the outbreak of war – neither of whom had any trace of ‘supercilious arrogance’.
Both became professors of German literature, both had been sergeants.
As to the one I knew slightly, as students we knew that the two missing figures on his left hand had something do with his having served in Coastal Command. Only recently did I learn the full extraordinary story from the internet. His father had fought with the Czechoslovak Legion on the side of the Entente during the First World War. He himself volunteered for the Czech Army in 1941, but became a ‘tail-end Charlie’ with the Czech bomber squadron in the RAF.
The motto of 311 squadron was ‘never regard their numbers.’ Of around 2,000 Czechs who flew with the RAF during the war, 480 lost their lives, with 273 of them coming from this squadron.
In April 1942, at a time of crisis in the Battle of the Atlantic, 311 squadron was moved to hunt U-boats in the Bay of Biscay. On 29 September 1942 the Wellington in which Sergeant J.P. Stern was ‘tail-end Charlie’ was attacked by four Ju-88s. Severely wounded, he spent 14 hours in a dinghy before having the good fortune to be rescued.
The one I knew well was the father of a friend. I remember him once, in a moment of frustration with the inactivity of academic life, saying he wished he had been a general. At that time we knew that he made it here after spending six weeks in Buchenwald following Kristallnacht, and then been interned in the Isle of Man. He told us he had spent most of the war in the Pioneer Corps.
Only after he died did missing parts of the background appear. His father had distinguished himself in the Imperial Germany Army in the First World War. He himself had been part of the MI19 operation at Trent Park, which was the subject of a recent television programme which ‘Charles I’ mentioned on SST. Briefly, they put captured senior German officers in comfortable quarters in a country house, which was bugged with positively Soviet thoroughness. In the basement, a group of mainly German and Austrian refugees, including Sergeant P.F. Ganz, listened in and turned on the wax recording cylinders when appropriate.
Among other things, the transcripts of the conversations, of which a selection was published in 2007, show very clearly that the notion that the Wehrmacht was not heavily implicated in atrocities against Jews – and also Poles and Russians – was false.
(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-469883/The-Genocide-Generals-secret-recordings-explode-myth-knew-Holocaust.html )
When Peter Stern wrote about his ‘homeland’, he meant Czechoslovakia. As for Peter Ganz, he threw up a professorship at Oxford to go back to work in Germany.
Against this background, the taboo on anti-Semitism has always seemed to me fundamental. I have watched its moral force being steadily eroded by cynical abuse with a combination of horror and incredulous amazement that those responsible could be so self-destructively stupid.
As to Richard Perle, when we had him on a television programme I co-produced back in 1986 it was something of a culture shock. I had simply never come across a Jew like that.
David habakkuk
Any thought that my disdain for the AIPAC/Zionist crowd extends to Jews in general would be incorrect. These fellows are special. Nationalism in any form is a killer and their political faith is one of the more deadly and ruthless forms of the nationalist disease. pl
Tyler
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving . We did .
Remember we do agree on more then we disagree.
Merry Christmas too …
Mr. Habakkuk,
Also flattered. If I have my way the NYT, WaPo buildings and CNAC foundation are going to look like the US Embassy during the Fall of Saigon with fat neocon “policy analysts” hanging on to helicopter skids.
Tyler,
I rarely look at the NYT site, as in general the kind of reporting and analysis which I find useful are conspicuous by their absence there, but a couple of recent visits have made me think that their columnists may be being quietly surrounded by their own readers.
In a comment earlier on this thread on Tom Friedman’s piece on Ari Shavit’s book, I pointed to the scepticism of the comments which had the most endorsements from readers about the views alike of Friedman and of Shavit.
A recent column by Roger Cohen on the negotiations with Iran is even more interesting. In fairness, he has gone some considerable way to grasping the way in which Israel – with, regrettably, the support of the most politically active among American Jews – has been busily digging its own funeral. So he writes that ‘cheap allusions to 1938 are a poor template for Israel in the 21st century’: which is what I have thought for many years.
However, I wonder whether Cohen was prepared for the three most highly rated comments. Extracts:
From the first comment: ‘Maybe Israel would be better served if its leaders took an elementary course in diplomacy, instead of publicly exercising their supposed right to insult the head of one of the few governments in the world that is committed to Israel’s survival, if (hopefully) not to its conquests.’
The second: ‘The NYT seems never to permit this to be expressed: Why does Israel have the right to nuclear weapons and Iran doesn’t?’
From the third, whose author is clearly Jewish: ‘So I am the child of one of those “1938 people,” who, despite the deportation and murder of most of his family, eventually came to recognize the lethal consequences of fanaticism of the Left or the Right. Bibi mirrors Ahmadinejad’s dehumanization of the Other. He would have us on the road to World War III, if Obama and John Kerry were to follow his urging to starve the Iranians into submission (and perhaps bomb their centrifuges as well).’
(See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/opinion/cohen-israels-iran-dilemma.html?src=recg )
I do not want to build too much on this, but it seems to me that a ‘1975 moment’ may be redundant. Particularly if latent divisions within their own side can effectively exploited, the Israeli lobby may in the not very distant future perhaps be revealed as a ‘paper tiger’.
Mr. Habakkuk,
Thank you for pointing me that way. The comments sections can surprise you in the NYT from time to time.
What do you think about the relationship between American Jewry and the Left in America? My personal opinion is that relationship would be as rife for angry exploitation as Israel demanding we send our children to die for their country.
Had a smoked turkey. What a treat!
I’m glad to hear your Thanksgiving was well. As an adult, it truly is my favorite holiday.
Now that would make a great movie script. How about “Red, White and Blue Dawn”?
Two words for Mr Richard Perle: Ahmed Chalabi
So did many Indians who went on to contribute to the nuclear sciences in India.
Doesn’t the US Law carry death penalty in this case?
Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans have no understanding of religious sentiments that informs Western Eurasians and North Americans.
Their interactions with Israel will be purely transactional but correct in the diplomatic sense.
Indian Hindus, on the other hand, are in awe of Israel and they are foolish enough to succumb to their emotions in regards to Israel.
babak
“Doesn’t the US Law carry death penalty in this case?” The Espionage Act of 1917 was the basis of the Rosenberg executions in a nuclear espionage case. The statute of limitations may have run out. I think it is 12 years for this statute but the lawyers will tell us. pl
To your point against extremist nationalism; extra-solar planets in the Milky Way galaxy are being discovered and it is very likely that in the not too distant future a suitably large number of earth-like planets could be discovered.
Further scientific and engineering advances ma make it possible for each nation or tribe to emigrate from Earth to any of these extra-solar planets – where they could live their nationalistic delusions to the full-extent – being safe from all the other untrustworthy and despicable nations.
Other nations, less paranoid, may decide to stay put on Earth to benefit from the diversity of the nations and cultures and the richness that they bring to any and all.
Tyler,
You might be surprised how little fondness there is for Israel amongst rank and file liberals. If you are talking about monied and politically connected lefties, then that is another story.
Oh, I imagine so, but on the other hand at the head of nearly every single left wing ultra monied organization there’s a large amount of jewry.
They get a lot of mileage out of that tikka olam thing to meddle, don’t they?
Jack Black can grow a beard and play Tom Friedman AND Paul Krugman.