Are you suggesting that Pollard is unjustly imprisoned? How so?
Are you saying that Pollard didn’t actually commit a crime? In what reality is espionage not a crime?
Are you saying that a man who has the personal attention of the head of government of one of the US’s closest allies is actually weak and powerless? You damn well know that you don’t hold the same standard for anyone who might have had the personal good will of George Bush, that’s for sure.
Whether or not Pollard is a worse human being today depends on his own character. If he is contrite and has genuine remorse for what he did, I’d say he’s a better man. If he thinks his betrayal is justified, I’d say he’s no better and deserves a longer sentence.
One serious question for you: Robert Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison and has been in Supermax for more than a decade. Should he be released?
My whole objection was to the sentiment, offered in this thread, that Pollard was solely responsible for what happened to him. We are responsible, too. No fobbing it all off on Pollard.
And the implications of that view, either in general or in particular, either morally or practically, would be … what exactly? Surely you were just about to explain why you think it’s of real significance, weren’t you? Surely?
You seem to think I have a soft spot for spies. I don’t. Their betrayals can and have gotten real people killed, people who were working earnestly to protect the US abroad, people who have taken great risks to get information we need. That’s the source of my animus toward Dick Cheney … he not only exposed Valerie Plame, but everyone who was working with her to prevent nuclear proliferation. All of her networks in other countries got rolled up real fast … people imprisoned, I think at least one was killed maybe more. I’m sure you don’t care about that … right?
I am OK with Hanssen’s sentence, though I would also be OK with a 30 year sentence … in either case, his life is fucked. I know you don’t get that, but I hope some day you will.
And I do think that whether or not human beings are killed or imprisoned as a result of secrets released should weigh heavily in our judgement of spies.
Snowdens’ revelations about the NSA’s activities, on the other hand, revealed an agency that was illegally spying on, not just it’s own citizens, but the citizens’ elected representatives, without any specific cause. He is a hero.
A nuanced approach rather than “kill all spies!” results in a better justice system.
It does sound, based on an earlier post, that Pollard’s sentence was unusually severe. Maybe the judge was having a bad day, or maybe the judge was told to have a bad day, I dunno.
We did. But Pollard’s betrayal made that a reasonable response of the justice system. Why are you unable to encompass taking responsibility for the justice system? Do you also cavil at taking responsibility for imprisoning rapists, armed robbers and murderers? We fuck up their lives, too, you know.
I’m not (and let’s let your strange choice of verb pass unnoticed). I’m simply asking why you think it’s important, or even relevant, to this discussion.
Do you always try to derail threads that make you uncomfortable for some reason by drowning them in irrelevancies?
It’s not an irrelevancy, it’s a central part of what’s wrong with our justice system. People say, 'he broke the law, we put him in jail, that’s it." By fobbing it all off on the criminal, they try to excuse themselves from examining important elements like, “Was this law fair?” “Was the sentence just?” and so forth. It’s our system, what happens to people in it is our responsibility as well as theirs.
So that’s why I objected to the notion that it was all Pollard’s fault. Also, I do feel that we have fucked up Pollard’s life thoroughly enough with a 30 year prison sentence. Further punishment almost seems to be guilding the lily.
An uninsured motorist drives through a red light and smashes into another car, causing him millions of dollars worth of liability and legal costs. Driver knew full well that driving recklessly was an invitation to those penalties. Only with Evil Captor’s twisted sense of justice could the victims of the car crash be accused of ruining the reckless driver’s financial well-being, what with the victims’ “cheap morality.”
Armitage was the direct leaker, but Cheney, Libby, and Rove were part of the conspiracy as well. The highest-ranking of them, and by inference the leader of the conspiracy, was Cheney.
This is not really a debate that I want to have. But I will say that, while Pollard did violate the plea agreement (by the interview with Wolf Blitzer that you linked to later in your thread), and maybe should have gotten a more severe sentence than if he didn’t, the life sentence was still excessive.
And the appeal judges, for the most part dismissed Pollard’s appeal for timeliness reasons, not based (with a few exceptions) on the merits of the argument.
