| Does event honoring Israeli spy suggest another Israeli operation? By Jeff Gates Jul , 2010, |
Less than two weeks prior to the mass murder of September 11, 2001, the Israeli government made a $1 million grant to Israeli super-spy Jonathan Pollard. In retrospect, the facts suggest that grant may well have served as a signal to Israeli operatives inside the U.S.
On July 13, 2010, in observance of Pollard’s 9,000th day of incarceration, the Jerusalem municipality dimmed the lights illuminating the Old City. This gesture of Israeli solidarity included a projection onto the darkened walls of a message urging that President Obama release their spy from prison.
Thus, the concern among knowledgeable intelligence operatives that this Pollard commemoration may mean that another Israeli operation is underway.
On March 4, 1987, this Israeli-American was sentenced to life imprisonment for conveying to Israel more than 1 million classified U.S. military documents. Tel Aviv passed those secrets on to Moscow.
In practical effect, this Israeli espionage jettisoned not only America’s Cold War defense strategy, it also jeopardized the entirety of NATO’s defense posture.
From 1948 to 1989, U.S. taxpayers invested $20 trillion in Cold War-related defense (in 2010 dollars). In practical effect, an Israeli spy operation negated those outlays. Following Pollard’s arrest in 1986, Israel repeatedly assured U.S. leaders that he was part of a rogue spy operation.
Not until 12 years later did Tel Aviv concede the obvious: Pollard was an Israeli spy the entire time. According to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, “[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by . . . Pollard’s treasonous behavior.”
Twelve years later, the Pollard storyline shifted again when in June 2010 Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., revived the phony “rogue” portrayal in yet another attempt to distance Tel Aviv from the fact that Israel continues its espionage operations in the U.S.
Another “hyphenated American,” Oren relinquished the U.S. component of his citizenship to serve as Israel’s ambassador to Washington. Though he withdrew his Pollard statement, no one could explain why someone with his sophistication would issue a “rogue operation” statement.
Signaling the network
Tel Aviv’s first concerted attempt to gain Pollard’s release dates to 1998 when, while negotiating the Wye River Accords, Prime Minister Ehud Barak secured from President Bill Clinton an agreement for Pollard’s release. Clinton backpedaled when threatened with a mass resignation by outraged members of the U.S. intelligence community.
The entryway to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, features an agency crest imbedded in the tiled floor. An adjoining wall commemorates with stars the unnamed dead who lost their lives as U.S. intelligence operatives. Those featured typically achieved the equivalent military rank of colonel.
As a result of Pollard’s spying, 110 C.I.A. operatives lost their lives. In addition, a reported 1,600 prime American assets were lost due to this Israeli espionage. Americans have yet to be told the true extent of this loss.
In the history of U.S. national security, Pollard enjoys top billing as inflicting the most damage. In Israel, he is revered. Eligible for release in 2015, he will be welcomed home as a Zionist hero to a nation that granted him citizenship and several national awards.
His iconic status assures that news of Pollard -- any news whatsoever -- emboldens Israeli-Americans committed to the Zionist geopolitical agenda. Attempts to secure his release assure hyphenated Americans that their “homeland” will stand in solidarity with them at any cost. Israeli offers of large sums of money reinforce that commitment.
Americans remain largely clueless about the espionage role played by Israeli-Americans. Few recall Jonathan Pollard. Fewer still grasp the costs that Pollard’s treason imposed in blood and treasure. Nor do Americans understand the overwhelming influence of dual-citizens both in creating and communicating the false intelligence that took the U.S. to war in the Middle East.
“To wage war by way of deception” has long been the operative credo of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence and operations directorate. Mossad operatives routinely target Israeli-Americans as recruits when staging operations in the U.S.
Even now, many Americans believe that Israel is an ally despite more than six decades of facts confirming the contrary. Israeli espionage remains ongoing aided by a cadre of cooperative members of both the House and Senate and their staffs.
To believe otherwise allows gullibility to displace facts confirming the gravity of the threat that this entangled alliance imposes on the U.S. and, by extension, on the international community.
This latest Israeli adoration of traitor Jonathan Pollard is clearly an affront to the U.S. as Israel’s sponsor, financier, protector and primary arms supplier. Of immediate concern, this high profile event may be a signal setting in motion another murderous incident meant to persuade Americans that they face an external threat rather than the ongoing threat of an enemy within.
| The parallel universe By Douglas Valentine Jul , 2010, |
As a result of Dana Priest’s three-part article, Top-Secret America, published in the Washington Post, pundits have been falling all over themselves in their rush to describe the size and implications of the elephant in the living room. Forget that none of these pundits has seen fit to write about the elephant before. More important is the fact that the elephant has dimensions Dana Priest never even touched upon.
Let me tell you a story.
In 1985, I was contacted by Larry, a CIA officer who had had a breakdown and wanted to talk to me. He had served as a deep cover agent overseas for over 15 years at that point. He had been recruited from the Marines in Vietnam, and given a fake life in which his father had been an Australian soldier in World War II, and his mother a Filipino who died in childbirth. The Australian soldier had abandoned the mother before she gave birth. The father had later died in World War II, and Larry, having been brought up in an orphanage, was adopted as an infant by a couple in the United States.
In the legend created by the CIA, Larry’s foster parents told him about his real parents while he was a Marine in Vietnam. Larry took advantage of his proximity to the Philippines to travel there and claim his right to Filipino citizenship. In this way the CIA established an agent in the Philippines, with impeccable credentials. Larry eventually was even elected to public office.
To make a long story short, after Larry’s breakdown, the CIA got him a job as a manager of a Playboy club in Detroit. Later they transferred him to Washington, DC, as manager of the Four Ways restaurant. When I met him there, his Filipino wife and entourage were staffing the facility, along with his CIA hand-holder, who handled finances.
This was the fanciest place I had never been in my life. It was a place where State Department officials, foreign dignitaries and business tycoons enjoyed the finest wines and the most haute cuisine. Each lavishly appointed room had its own dining table and waiter. As I sat in a leather booth in the wood-paneled basement bar with Larry, he explained that each room was bugged by the CIA.
As we were talking, a group of well-dressed younger people in the company of one older man took occupied the booth next to us. The rest of the basement bar was empty. They ordered drinks, but remained silent and alert as Larry explained the ins and outs of his CIA experience to me. At one point, he nodded to the older man at the other table; then he informed me that the young people were junior officer trainees from Langley, who were also listening to his lecture.
Again, to make a very long story short, Larry explained that the CIA manages a parallel society to American society, where deep cover agents like him, as well as retired CIA officers and their agents, are provided with comfortable employment in their retirement years, or when they otherwise need recompense for their service. Many of these agents have no resume that is suitable in the modern professional world. So there is this parallel universe that they are folded into, as managers of the local Ford dealership, or Chinese restaurant, or hotel, or in hundreds and thousands of other jobs.
Think of it as a sort a witness protection program. Since 1985 it has grown substantially. It is, of course, another facet of Top-Secret America, but the ex-spooks in this dimension are not your average every day wingnut ideologue informant or strong-arm man. They know how to burn down buildings, which is what the CIA does.
As John Lennon said, “Imagine.”
Doug Valentine is the author of “The Phoenix Program” and his latest book is “The Strength of the Pack: The Personalities, Politics and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped The DEA.” Please visit his website at www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/bio.htm.
