Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Greenwald on Jonathan Pollard, Israel

I am not entirely sure where this piece fits in the puzzle, but in an interview with Channel 10 television in Israel that aired Monday night, according to Haaretz, Greenwald:
agreed that the Snowden revelations are relevant to Pollard’s case. “When the U.S. government goes around the world criticizing other countries for spying on allies and prosecuting them,” he said, “are they going to maintain that with a straight face when they’re doing exactly that? 
It’s proper to raise Pollard’s case in the context of U.S. spying on its Israeli ally, he continued, because that underscores the hypocrisy of what the U.S. itself is doing. The U.S. government, Greenwald charged, does exactly what it accuses its enemies of doing, and no country has the right to say other countries shouldn’t do something while it is secretly violating that very same taboo.
Also of note, Greenwald said, according to H:
 Greenwald said the Snowden documents contain “a huge number of very significant stories” that have not yet been published, and these include stories related to the Middle East in general and Israel in particular. He and the other journalists working on the material will continue releasing stories at about the same pace as hitherto, he added, explaining that they have only had the Snowden documents for seven months, and “given their volume and complexity,” that isn’t a long time.
I hope these new stories are more than just revelations that the US spies on Israel. Given, what we know about other spying the US is doing that would be no surprise. Is Greenwaldnow hinting, however,  that we may for the first time get transcripts of conversations picked up by the NSA?

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, well, Israeli government is not innocent either. Personally, I don't care if the USG spies on their government. They're always trying to look innocent. Just because the USG is the big bad guy on the block doesn't mean that the smaller guy is any better or not using the bigger guy to do certain things. There are Israeli spies that are in prison because they spied on our government's military technology.

    It seems that some libertarians fall for the whole Israel is innocent thing. When Daniel McAdams was on Tom Woods' show, he stated that we were trying to push Israel into a confrontation. This, in some ways, may be true, but that's not the whole bit. For one, the USG is not us. What I do remember is AIPAC running around trying to get congress reps to vote for war against Syria. This, after the president dumped his efforts and pretty much told them that if they want to do this they're going to have to do it themselves.

    McAdams went onto say that Israel as a country when polled did not want war, and that we weren't good friends because we were trying to push them into a confrontation. True since the folks like McCain can benefit from war; however, McCain's social circle isn't the only pushers or benefactors of war. There was another poll showing that if the U.S. went to war against the supposed enemies of Israel that Israel would be mostly for it. And, that's what I remember in recent events. That they want us to do the dirty work for them. So, the whole friendship thing is twisted either way.

    There's too much to lose if they can't keep up the whole illusion of friendship with the U.S., considering the whole religious funding from conservative Dispensational/Zionist Evangies. Really, everybody looked to Putin and credits him for delaying or diverting war. 1. The commie media of the US would rather credit Putin instead of having the American people realize they can divert this government from taking nefarious actions. 2. Putin never, or at least was never reported to have, stated anything of Israel. There's something missing about the whole Putin versus Obama affair concerning Syria and Iran. There's, also, China that met with Israeli officials.

    I just assume to not fall for the "Israel being a victim of USG spying".

    -JS

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  2. I do find it strange that Greenwald has suddenly become the judicious authority over the amount, the frequency, and the type of documented material we all wait patiently with bated breath. Whatever information he has is terrible enough in the hands of the NSA, but somehow we're supposed to kneel to the ethics of a journalist, who has positioned himself vis-a-vis the population at large and government institutions to a higher moral standing than . . . whom? I don't know. Clearly there is a thriving market for hocked data. And I am okay with selling data to the highest bidder. But it bothers me that the Greenwald and Snowden thing basically says that not only is it okay to steal, but it is your moral duty to do so. Data is property. The government stole it. Snowden and Greenwald stole it back. Finally, specifically, what has Greenwald/Snowden released that makes the rest of what they've cached so valuable? And to whom is it valuable? Governments? I just think it's funny that one man or a small group that involves Laura, Glenn, Snowden and others can bring a government to its knees and play hardball with it. I have my doubts.

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  3. Is it stealing if a third party takes stolen property from tne second party who stole it from the first party original owner?

    So far I haven't read any earth shattering, government toppling revelations.

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  4. "I just think it's funny that one man or a small group that involves Laura, Glenn, Snowden and others can bring a government to its knees and play hardball with it. I have my doubts."

    Exactly. But it's not a small group. It's the front of a much larger group. Just trace out the connections.
    The same people and groups pop up over and over.

    These are all different segments of the ruling classes fighting with each other.

    At least, you can sue the NSA. I am not sure whom you'd sue if your private info were being sold and resold across the globe by unknown corporations.


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