Re: USS Liberty

CBS reported that a spy, described as a trusted analyst at the
Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward
Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were
still debating the policy." This put the Israelis, according to one
source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to
influence the outcome."

Well, let us take a closer look at that idea of "harmless espionage"
by recalling Israel's most famous failed spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Jonathan Pollard is an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston
Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US
Navy. There have been many theories offered as to why Pollard decided
to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state, but that Pollard
did betray his country of birth to Israel is beyond all doubt.

Pollard delivered over 1000 classified documents to Israel for which
he was well paid. Included in those documents were the names of over
150 US agents in the Mideast, who were eventually "turned" into agents
for Israel.

But by far the most egregious damage done by Pollard was to steal
classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to
the USSR and send them to Israel. According to sources in the US State
Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear
secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from
the USSR to Israel. Other information that found its way from the US
to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents
operating inside the USSR. Casper Weinberger, in his affidavit
opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard, described the damage done to
the United States thus, "[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater
harm to national security than that caused by... Pollard's treasonous
behavior."

This should end the suggestion that Israel's spies are harmless. They
are not. The United States' nuclear deterrent cost an estimated five
trillion taxpayer dollars during the 50s and 60s to build and
maintain, and less than $100,000 for Pollard to undermine. Israel
waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now
lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship.

Pollard is hardly the only Israeli spy operating in the United States.
He just had the misfortune to get caught. Here are just a few examples
of the Israeli spy operations that have been detected.

1947. Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US
citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican
Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL's
reports on suspected communists as "hearsay."

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal
security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the
second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the
Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the
residence of the US military attach� in Tel Aviv.

1954 "The Lavon Affair". Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of
Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to
frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations.
Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from
office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-
Gurion.

1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC
Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an
Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.")

1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel
flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See "Assault on the
Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). In 2004, Captain Ward
Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the
attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the
investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates
the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats
and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty's lifeboats, the
most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all
hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would
have dragged the US into the war on Israel's side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Richard Perle is
caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is
done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to
top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin,
and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped.
Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to
penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a "Honey
Trap", using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a
Jerusalem girl.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen
incidents in which American officials transferred classified
information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the
F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not
prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of
smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post,
10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-
Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels"

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently
tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera
system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel
in 1978, is serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant --
with security clearance -- on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 "The Samson Option," by Seymour M. Hersh reports, "Illicitly
obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into
Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the
security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders,
Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: "Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to
be discussed with your American counterparts."

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on
critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council,
ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern
Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the
San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some
cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the
city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit
for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo warning US
military contractors that "Israel aggressively collects [US] military
and industrial technology." The report stated that Israel obtains
information using "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and
identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US
citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report "Defense Industrial Security:
Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense
Contractors" found that according to intelligence sources "Country
A" (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times,
2/22/96) "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the
United States of any US ally." The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the
report, "Classified military information and sensitive military
technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies
of this country." The report described "An espionage operation run by
the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific
and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee
to obtain US classified military intelligence documents." The
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996)
noted that this was "a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan
Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided
Israel's LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated
800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information."

The GAO report also noted that "Several citizens of [Israel] were
caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in
manufacturing artillery gun tubes."

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, "Worldwide Challenges
to Naval Strike Warfare" reported that "US technology has been
acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and
possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology." Jane's Defense
Weekly (2/28/96) noted that "until now, the intelligence community has
not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to
China." The report noted that this "represents a dramatic step forward
for Chinese military aviation." (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, "inadvertently"
gives classified military information on missile systems and armored
vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a
conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the
possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of
State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir
Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as "Dov", had commented
that they may get the letter from "Mega", the code name for Israel's
top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the
Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli
intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky's phone at the
Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill
Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky
their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same
time, the FBI's hunt for "Mega" is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents' communications have been
penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse
Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for
most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is
talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by
law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but
suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and
development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door
into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and
that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is
finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads
to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside
the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies
have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested
for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse.
Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught
with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later
revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the
Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time
of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come.
The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to
Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad
agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States
Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli
agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the
public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure
from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the
story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo,
an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade
Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of
the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender
of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible
fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL's Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman.
He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art
students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern
Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one
of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at
high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used
to "deliver furniture." The next day, police discovered traces of TNT
and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin
and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that
the tests that showed explosives were "false positived" by cigarette
smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi
provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed
over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who
provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a
school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired
passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture
and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The
contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries,
including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a
truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a
bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out
to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the
Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to
eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

This brings us to the present scandal. Two years into an investigation
of AIPAC's possible role as a spy front for Israel, Larry Franklin, a
mid-level Pentagon Analyst is observed by the FBI giving classified
information to two officials of AIPAC suspected of being Israeli
spies. AIPAC hires lawyer Nathan Lewin to handle their legal defense,
the same lawyer who defended suspected Israeli spy Stephen Bryen in
1978.

Larry Franklin worked in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, run by
Richard Perle, at the time Perle (who was caught giving classified
information to Israel back in 1970) was insisting that Iraq was
crawling with weapons of mass destruction requiring the United States
to invade and conquer Iraq. There were no WMDs, of course, and Perle
has dumped the blame for the "bad intelligence" on George Tenet. But
what is known is that the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was
coordinating with a similar group in Israel, in Ariel Sharon's office.

With two suspected Israeli spies (at least) inside the office from
which the lies that launched the war in Iraq originated, it appears
that the people of the United States are the victims of a deadly hoax,
a hoax that started a war.

The leaking of the investigation of AIPAC to the media on August 28th,
2004 gave advance warning to other spies working with Franklin. The
damage to the FBI's investigation was completed when United States
Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the FBI to stop all arrests in
the case. Like the Stephen Bryen case and the hunt for "Mega", this
latest spy scandal seems destined to be buried by officials who have
their own secret allegiances to protect, barring a massive public
outcry.

The organization at the heart of the latest spy investigation, AIPAC,
wields tremendous influence over the US Congress. Through its members
and affiliated PACs, AIPAC directs a huge flow of campaign cash in
favor of, and occasionally against, Senators and Representatives
solely on the basis of their willingness to support Israel. As an
example, in 2002, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham received so much
help from pro-Israeli pacs that 76% of his campaign budget came from
OUTSIDE the state of Alabama, mostly from New York.

Let me repeat that. A Congressman AIPAC wanted elected received more
money from pro-Israel groups outside his state than from his own
constituents inside his state. Who is that Congressman going to be
thinking of when he votes in Congress?

So here is the mother of all scandals.

For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign
country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group
suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for
the benefit of a foreign government.

Think about that as billions of your tax dollars flow to Israel while
your roads and schools crumble and decay and services are cut.

Think about that as the coffins come home with your loved ones inside.

Think about that when you and a million of your fellow citizens march
down the streets of America opposing wars built on lies and deceptions
and wonder why the government just doesn't want to listen to you any
more.

On Jun 8, 10:03 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Wednesday, June 08, 2011USS LibertyPosted by Sheldon Richman at 7:34 AM
> Today is the 44th anniversary of the Israeli government's attack on the USSLibertyduring the Six-Day War. Read about the infamous assault, which killed 34 men, and the shameless cover-uphere.I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 1990Learn morehere,here, andhere. A BBC report beginshere. The Wikipedia article ishere.http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2011/06/today-is-44th-anniversary-of-israeli.html?spref=fb

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