Still no mention of my favorite Vulcan’s history of passing secrets to Israel in the reports.
I almost forgot to link to Michael Ledeen’s negative pregnant denial. These are excellent specimens.
**RE: AN ISRAELI MOLE AT THE PENTAGON**
So now we hear–from the hapless Leslie Stahl–that somebody in the Pentagon was passing secret information to Israel about what? About the policy debate over Iran policy. But. but, but, THERE IS STILL NO IRAN POLICY. So is someone being accused of passing “information” about something that doesn’t exist in the first place?
Let us pause a moment and note that was alleged to’ve been passed was an unfinished policy paper that has yet to be completed. So, the fact thta there has yet to be an official policy made is really almost but not entirely irrelevant to issue at hand- that the unfinished, yet top secret, document was passed to Israel.
What else does Mr. Ledeen have for us?
I’ll have a conversation with Angleton about it over the weekend and post it Monday morning.
Any ideas who or what Angleton is?
Interesting exchange involving Ledeen about the ‘Iranian Chalabi’, Manucher Ghorbanifar from 1989:(edited for length)
TRUTH ABOUT GHORBANIFAR
The New York Review of Books
Volume 36, Number 7 • April 27, 1989
Like those at CIA who stereotyped Ghorbanifar as a near-total, pathological liar,[:eek:] Draper just can’t bring himself to look honestly at the evidence. For what does Mr. Draper use as proof of Ghorbanifar’s mendacity? He cites the trip to Tehran in the spring of 1986, when “Ghorbanifar was blamed by the Americans for having deceived both sides about what each was prepared to do….”
So Draper’s bullying words about me—“Michael A. Ledeen is a gambler. He gambles that no one is going to check up on him”—are better applied to himself.
Michael A. Ledeen Chevy Chase, Maryland
Theodore Draper replies:
Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Ledeen is still gambling:
2. More important is the issue whether Ghorbanifar lied to both sides at key moments—something Ledeen explicitly denied in his book (pp. 192–193). Now Ledeen mentions the evidence given by George Cave, the Farsi-speaking CIA consultant who went on the mission to Tehran. Cave happens to be the one who has given the most telling testimony that Ghorbanifar deceived both sides.
It is also clear that Ledeen has not done his homework and is gambling that no one else is doing it.
I simply do not see the issue here. The only story is someone is being investigated. We have no other information. I’m sorry I even posted in this thread; it’s clear there’s no definitive evidence any spying actually occurred, and if this Franklin guy is innocent, it’s a damn shame, because it will probably ruin his life either way.
Actually, if you’ll notice, more than one somebody’s being investigated.
What makes this clear?
Not necessarily. Consider fnord My Favorite Vulcan and his lengthy career in the halls of power since he wa caught doing something similar.
Also consider that Mr. Franklin is reportedly close to retirement.
My Favorite Vulcan? Wasn’t that a sitcom in the 60’s? (maybe you watched tv back then)
Seriously, maybe it’s because he wasn’t the only one to do so.
But not to worry, Simon - All Roads Lead to Richard Perle.
Meanwhile, here’s a first response from my fave, Michael Ledeen. Isn’t he just the cutest?
(on preview: looks like Loopydude agrees with Ledeen)
Aren’t you just the belle of the ball?
I don’t agree with anybody. I just don’t see any evidence of anything beyond the fact that there is an investigation into Israeli espionage. Somehow I thought, since there was such a ruckus, that more definite evidence had already come to light, but on more careful reading of the situation, I see nothing of the sort has come out.
Nobody would be happier than myself if it turned out that Paul Wolfowitz was caught on video smoking hashish with Ariel Sharon while they traded news of our Top Secret Plan to Nuke Tehran.
But since on evidence has been forthcoming, I can’t see any point in getting my panties in a bunch over this.
What are you expecting?
How much info do you expect there to be publicly available in the first twenty four hours or so since the story broke?
Maybe if the expected arrest is made next week some more evidence will be made available.
here it is:
**Iran-Contra II?**
Fresh scrutiny on a rogue Pentagon operation.
By Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris
September 2004
Ain’t dat some shit? Ain’t dat some shit?
from Dr. Josh’s piece linked to above
In particular, the FBI is looking with renewed interest at an unauthorized back-channel between Iranian dissidents and advisers in Feith’s office, which more-senior administration officials first tried in vain to shut down and then later attempted to cover up.
<snipped a bunch of crap that’s already been posted in this thread>
The meetings turn out to have been far more extensive and much less under White House control than originally reported.
Another [meeting] has never been reported in the American press…
… ** the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a “regime change” agenda not approved by the president’s foreign policy principals or even the president himself**.
…why were mid-level Pentagon officials organizing meetings with a foreign intelligence agency behind the back of the CIA – a clear breach of US government protocol?
[February 2002]…Hadley sent word to the officials in Feith’s office and to Ledeen to cease all such activities.
…second meeting took place in Rome in June, 2002…
…July 2002…Ledeen… back in Rome in September to continue “his work” with the Iranians…
Almost a year later, in June, 2003, there were still further meetings…
…Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election.
Yeah. So far, looks like All Roads Lead to Ledeen. But there’s more to come, right?
Is it too soon to speculate about the ties to the forged Niger docs and the Plame outing? Do we still believe that Plame was outed only as an act of petty spite? Remember that Plame was working on a sting op for an arms deal…
Do these new dots connect?
Comments from co-author Laura Rozen:
Key points:
-
The secret meetings between Pentagon officials and associates of Ghorbanifar in Europe went on for almost two years, a full year longer than the Bush administration has acknowledged. Ghorbanifar told me of three meetings. While the Pentagon originally told the Post last year that Harold Rhode, an official in Feith’s office, had simply run into Ghorbanifar in Paris in June 2003, Ghorbanifar tells me that the two spent weeks planning the meeting.
-
The Italian military intelligence organization SISMI provided logistics and security at the first meeting, in Rome, in December 2001. And the head of Sismi, Nicollo Pollari, as well as the Italian Defense Minister, Antonio Martino, attended the meeting, along with Michael Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, Pentagon officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin. [Sismi has been in the news recently for having been reported to have used an Italian middle man to the put the forged Niger docs into circulation.]
-
Ghorbanifar told me he has had fifty meetings with Michael Ledeen since September 11th, and that he has given Ledeen “4,000 to 5,000 pages of sensitive documents” concerning Iran, Iraq and the Middle East, “material no one else has received.” Ghorbanifar, speaking with me by telephone from France, says those meetings took place abroad because he has been refused a US visa the last two times he has applied.
-
Ghorbanifar has also been meeting with an assortment of other American officials, which I will write about later.
No, he/she doesn’t resonably expect a cite, this is the tactic of either trying to score a dabate point, or dismissing an opposing view, by putting up a hoop for the opposition to jump through.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are legitimate requests for “cites”, but all too often, there are requests for cites for things that are accepted as common knowledge or personal opinion. It’s also somewhat of an adolescent debate tactic.
By the use of the word “own”, it is obvious that it is opinion. Although “own” could be quite apropos with regards to certain bought-and-paid-for members of congress.
But anyways, here’s a “cite” for you that backs up the opinion that “Israel owns us”.
Please. A cite from the "The Independent Palestinian Information Network "?
Here’s another cite that indicates that your citation is a known hoax.. A hoax which was seized upon with delight by some of the scummier elements of the internet (http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2002/020628_1.html).
I’ll point out for the record that if you do a Google search on Sharon’s supposed quote, the first hit you get is a refutation. So Razorsharp is unlikely to have been unaware of the falsity of this claim.
You’re close. It’s really a way of saying “you can’t back that up, can you?” Opinions supposedly being based on facts and all.
I thought it sounded like a pretty clumsy gaffe for a pro pol.
So if I read all this right, and God knows my policy-wonking crystals are buckling,…
The information the Isrealis were gleaning from all this was primarily a matter of diplomatic influence, rather than the usual tawdry espionage goodies like bomb sights, orders of battle, codes…
Now that would be a shrugging offense, if it were entirely military, there’s damn little chance we’ll be going to war with Israel.
But this notion of intelligence gleaned for the express purpose of pressing Israel’s interests in Washington is …disconcerting.
How many of the neo-cons are atheists? Or of such a secular bent that they might as well be atheists. These are basing their recommendations on realpolitik, they believe themselves to be hard-headed and realistic men, making the difficult choices. In their mind, perhaps the fact that a ME entirely reconstructed on an American model, the fact that this would be an enormous boon to Israel, is mostly a coincidence of politics and geography.
But there is another element, best typified by Gen. Boykin, who lectures a church group on Apocalyptic themes in full uniform. To these people, Isreal is not a political fact, but a theological one, they live in a universe part Stephen King, part Calvin, and part Bismarck.
In order for certain key predictions in Apocalyptic literature to come about, the jews must return to Israel, then all the suffering and tribulation can begin! Party down! This variety of Protestant psychosis has resulted in a fundamentalist christian movement fervently devoted to the State of Israel as a matter of prophecy. And, as you might well expect, deeply devoted to the Republican cause.
So let me give us all something more to worry about. No, don’t thank me, always glad to spread a little sunshine. There are men in the highest halls of power, as witness our own General Boykin, who see themselves as agents of prophecy. A prophecy of Apocalypse.
And so to bed.
When mine give read-outs that involve the immanentization of the eschaton I suspect buckling as well
lazy minisodan
Have to get in training. Hibernation season approaching.