The Spies Who Came In Under The Radar
The AIPAC spy trial has been delayed once again. It was supposed to start on January 16: the new trial date is April 29.
I’ve been covering this story since it first broke—in the summer of 2004. Briefly, the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst, Larry Franklin, was caught handing over top secret classified information to officials of AIPAC, Israel’s premier lobbying organization in the US, who then handed it over to Israeli officials. Franklin pled guilty, was given 12 years in prison and a fine on condition that he cooperate with the prosecution of the AIPAC spy nest: Steve Rosen, the Lobby’s chief go-getter and fixer, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC’s top Iran analyst. Their “defense” has been that “everybody does it,” and they claim that it’s all an “anti-Semitic” conspiracy hatched in the upper echelons of the Justice Department: why, we’re violating they’re “First Amendment rights” by charging them with espionage!
What’s interesting, however, is that the information they wanted was our intelligence regarding Iran. They wanted to know what we had, and they were homing in on the classified information that led to the recently-issued National Intelligence Estimate, which showed Iran had stopped it’s nuke program in 2003. Catching these spies was and is part of the backstory to the NIE issue—which is why the AIPAC spy trial is more newsworthy than ever.
However, you won’t see even a basic aknowledgement from the “mainstream” media that the trial date has been delayed yet again—I’ve lost count of how many times—because hardly anything unfavorable about Israel and it’s American amen corner ever gets into the US media. Oh, but don’t ever suggest that the media is biased in favor of Israel and the Lobby—that would be a “hate crime”!
Oh, and of course the judge is now saying that all prospective jurors will be ”probed” (ouch!) for “anti-Semitic views,” i.e. if you don’t think Israel has a “right” to steal classified information, you’re no better than David Duke.
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I want to see how many positive comments you will get for this. Signed:The American Spinewatch
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Positive comment #1: Thank you for the bad news.
If we didn’t hear it from you, we woundn’t hear it at all.
Ignorance is strength...Theirs.
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So next spring we’ll have the edifying spectacle of two-thirds of our elected officials trotting along to the annual convention of a lobby organization under trial for espionage. Surely our media won’t be able to dodge the irony of that!
Or will they?
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Thanks for keeping this important issue in the news. The lamestream media sure isn’t going to mention it.
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The constant reflexive watch for anti-semitism creates more anti-semitism than it curbs. Methinks they doth protest too much…
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Thanks for the update on the trial. The date change certainly wasn’t “breaking news” in the media, was it? I used your short article in response to friends who still complain about people like Jane Fonda and Sean Penn. I told them that they should be more concerned with REAL security matters. And I’m glad to see that you still use the OLD picture on Taki’s website!
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