Former Assistant US Secretary of Defense Lawrence J. Korb sent a letter to President Obama two weeks ago stating that the sentence meted out to convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was too harsh and not justified by the crimes he committed, Army Radio reported on Tuesday.Pollard and the US agreed to a plea bargain, yet Pollard is imprisoned to this very day.
According to Korb, his boss, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, expended immense effort to convince the judge in the Pollard case to judge him harshly.
"Despite Pollard's admission of guilt, cooperation with authorities, asked for a plea bargain, he received a disproportional punishment," wrote Korb.
Korb pointed out in his letter that the average punishment for the crime conviction Pollard received was two to four years at the time of his conviction. And today, after several legal changes, the new average is about 10 years.
Enough is enough -- its time for the US to release Pollard and let him go home to Israel.
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5 comments:
I've long wondered about this. Every president has been pressured to release him, and has agreed to look into it. The political upside is enormous. And yet, it never happens. I wonder if there is something secret about Pollard's treason that poses such a large security risk they could not release him. We're missing a piece of the puzzle, to be sure.
Vox; I don't think its anything to do with Pollard's treason, but rather, using Pollard as leverage against Israel...
The missing puzzle piece is classified...and I have a feeling even Pollard would acknowledge that his ongoing incarceration is a worthwhile price to pay for Israel's security.
We're missing a piece of the puzzle, to be sure.
Well, only if you can't see the "missing" piece is that Pollard is Jewish and the country was Israel.
>Vox; I don't think its anything to do with Pollard's treason, but rather, using Pollard as leverage against Israel...
How much leverage could there be? Depending on your perspective, Israel either exerts a whole lot of leverage anyway, or comparatively none at all. Does Pollard's imprisonment really affect Israeli governments concretely? I would think the United States' use of its Security Council veto and the three billion dollars in yearly military aid exerts far more pressure on Israel, at least from an American perspective.
And I presume America would like to pressure Russia on many things as well. But they returned those spies in like a week.
You're really never going to find that missing piece, ever.
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