Glorious Saturday evening/no social life link dump

Anti-war anti-hero war hero hurt by ads from war hero anti-heroes

Michael Ledeen stops by to offer his thoughts on the Israeli spy allegations. I hope he's right, but I'm not so sure.

Can we deconstruct the accusation? Franklin is said to have leaked classified information about the policy debate concerning Iran. But:

1. We still do not have an Iran policy;

2. Everybody who reads the newspapers knows all about the policy debate. State doesn't want to annoy the mullahs, DoD doesn't like Iranian support for terrorism in Iraq, Bolton is warning about the atom bomb, and Rice and Bush say wonderful things about supporting the Iranian people but don't do anything.

So what's to leak to foreign intelligence services? It's all out there.

Reason from first principles: if the FBI had a real case, Franklin would be indicted and/or arrested, the Bureau wouldn't be wasting its time whispering to journalists. Most of the time stories like this one come from frustrated officials who have no case, who know they can't indict, can't arrest, and therefore can only smear.

At the current state of information, this "story" is a gag.

Several more comments from Ledeen, including his take on the meeting he arranged a few years ago between Larry Franklin and an Iranian dissident arms dealer, over at Roger L. Simon's place. Start here and scroll down for the rest.

UPDATE: More emphatic denials from Israeli officials, who blame the whole mess on a little old-fashioned, election-year Jew-baiting. Allah's not sure whether to hope that they're wrong or that they're right.

UPDATE: Haaretz measures the fallout.

UPDATE: Worthwhile comments below from readers "c" and "cyfir", both of which I agree with. CBS has the lead FBI agent on record, three other agents promising an arrest soon, and details about wiretapping, surveillance, and hard-drive searches. There's too much smoke here for there not to be at least a little fire.

UPDATE: More below from Michael Ledeen.

UPDATE: Hmmmm. Won't make a lick of difference to the Bush-haters, though. The less evidence there is of wrongdoing, the more evidence there is that the Chimpler is covering up.

UPDATE: More from Haaretz:

Israeli sources said Saturday that Franklin had work relations with Israeli officials, but that these relations did not exceed the boundaries of accepted diplomatic contact. The sources said that checks conducted over the weekend negated all possibilities of espionage or unacceptable conduct and that no Israeli had received classified information from Franklin.

Note: Franklin hasn't been accused of passing info directly to Israel. He's accused of passing it to AIPAC, which allegedly acted as middleman.

UPDATE: Debka cooks up some Machiavelli with a little Josh Marshall sprinkled on top:

The timing of the disclosure should be instructive. Was it leaked for the ulterior motive of hurting the Bush run for re-election against Senator John Kerry, by suggesting that his key decisions on the Iraqi war were determined not only by the neocons of his administration but by a foreign mole? Or was the motive quite different? Might it not have been designed for showing the president as having rid himself of the influence of the Pentagon team and Israel by the very fact of the probe against that team, Israel and its foremost Washington lobbyist, [AIPAC]?

Could be. If there's one group Bush can afford to piss off eight weeks before Election Day, it's the millions of Christian fundamentalists in his base who regard supporting Israel as a religious duty. Home run, Debbers.

As for the rest of the piece, check out who they think is the big winner in this mess. They're on much sturdier ground with that one.

UPDATE: Reader MarcH offers a clarifying comment:

You indicated that the CBS link identifies the FBI "lead agent". David Szady, the FBI Special Agent mentioned in the CBS story is no mere "street agent". The FBI official website shows Szady as Assistant Director for Counter Intelligence, i.e., the top FBI offical for these matters. Szady discusses his role in leading the Hanson investigation [here].

Here's what Iranian presidents say when the cameras are on:

"We are ready to do everything necessary to give guarantees that we won't seek nuclear weapons," Khatami said.

"As Muslims, we can't use nuclear weapons," he told reporters in Tehran. "One who can't use nuclear weapons won't produce them."

And here's what Iranian presidents say when they're not:

Rafsanjani said that Muslims must surround colonialism and force them [the colonialists] to see whether Israel is beneficial to them or not. If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

Certain Sunni Muslims, of course, consider the acquisition of nuclear weapons "a religious duty".

UPDATE: Unrelated to the above but too good not to share: In the course of Googling for this post, Allah came across an interview with Bin Laden from 1998 conducted by John Miller of ABC News. Check out the comparison Miller draws in his last question. It'll be interesting to see how they render the turban when we finally get around to putting him on Mount Rushmore, eh?

Beady-eyed Zionists operating "from within the office of the Secretary of Defense"! Shadowy Jews pulling strings "at the very highest level of the Pentagon"! Mel Gibson's father, vindicated at last!

Or not:

The FBI is investigating a mid-level Pentagon official who specializes in Iranian affairs for allegedly passing classified information to Israel, and arrests in the case could come as early as next week, officials at the Pentagon and other government agencies said last night.

The name of the person under investigation was not officially released, but two sources identified him as Larry Franklin. He was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections. . . .

[T]he official being investigated works under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs. Luti oversaw the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans," which conducted some early policy work for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. . . . Neither the House nor Senate intelligence committees, however, found support for allegations that the analysts in the office[] collected their own intelligence, or that their information significantly shaped the case the administration made for going to war.

Follow the chain of command laid out by WaPo and you've got at least three superiors separating Franklin from Rumsfeld: Bill Luti, Doug Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz. So much for the breathless allegations about Franklin working in Rummy's office or operating at "the very highest level of the Pentagon." The question is, why would CBS and Reuters try to make it sound like Franklin is more important than he is? Is it simply a case of scandal-inflation the better to hurt Bush? Or . . . nah, let's not go there yet. Suffice it to say, the story already has a smell about it and some are only too happy to breathe it in.

The JPost also has a report today on the spy allegations. An Israeli official denies categorically that Franklin is a plant and explains why Israel should neither need nor want to spy on the United States right now:

Israel's defense establishment said it conducted a thorough examination over the weekend with all security and intelligence bodies to verify the veracity of reports that a Pentagon employee passed on secrets to Israel.

"The examination revealed what we expected," said a senior defense official. "There are no sanctioned espionage operations going on against the United States. There is no truth to these reports."

The official, who spoke to The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity, said that the entire story was dubious from the outset. He noted that Israel and the United States are very close strategic allies and there is enormous sharing of intelligence between the two countries.

"We have very good, excellent working relations with the Americans, and we are very discreet about it. There is no need to operate (spies) in the Pentagon or anywhere else in the United States." The senior official said. "Also, it wouldn't be in our interest to take actions that would jeopardize these relations that we've built up over the years," he added.

You don't need to steal what you can get for free, particularly when you're stealing from a friend and particularly when that friend is pretty much your only friend. On the other hand, the fact that Franklin isn't an Israeli agent doesn't mean the charges aren't true. Could simply be that he's an American who decided to offer info to a foreign country. Stay tuned.

One other fact from the JPost article worth noting for the benefit of the "progressives" in the audience: Larry Franklin isn't Jewish.

UPDATE: A reader e-mails:

It seems like there's some confusion floating around about what 'office' means in this context. The "Office of the Secretary of Defense" (aka OSD) is an organization that works for Rumsfeld. They have osd.mil email addresses. I've met a few of them at research grant workshops (I'm working on a phd). When they introduce themselves they say "I work for OSD". I don't know the numbers but I'm pretty sure there's quite a few of these people -- way more than the handful of people who actually work in Rumsfeld's (small "o") office (i.e. the rooms he sits in).

I assume the alleged spy works for OSD. Journalists are often careless about terminology, and this seems to be one of those cases.

Here's a link to the OSD homepage. There are 39 different "major elements" listed, each of which, it seems safe to assume, boasts multiple analysts. Not exactly the close, intimate proximity to Don Rumsfeld implied by CBS and Reuters.

Sloppy reporting or deliberate obfuscation? You make the call.

Can't find a single link to this anywhere else yet but Hundred Percenter is reporting that the NYPD has foiled two freelance jihadis' plans to bomb the 34th Street subway station. Here's the story from the local NBC news affiliate, as transcribed by HP. Excerpt:

[I]nvestigators stress the men never got their hands on explosives. But the suspects allegedly discussed and plotted making a bomb that could be exploded in the 34th Street subway station or on a train pulling into that station. Officials stress there is no evidence the plot was timed to coincide with the convention. But the timing of the arrest certainly appear to have happened to get the men into custody before the convention gets underway. . . .

Sources tell us the suspects told the informant they wanted to set up a bomb for jihad, or holy war. But, the suspect also apparently spoke of setting off the explosion in an off hour to minimize casualties. Investigators say the men did say they hoped to hurt the city's and nation's economy.

No known connection to a terrorist group at this point. Here's the homepage for New York's NBC affiliate; the story will probably be up soon, so keep an eye out.

UPDATE: The Times has a report. "Bumblers." "Zealots."

Before the hysteria about ZOG and its pet chimp gets going in earnest, take a minute to familiarize yourself with the latest from Daniel Pipes. Can't have it both ways, Michael Moore fans.

Naqba

NOTE: Allah declines this opportunity to question the timing of the leak, but he reserves the right to do so at a date later to be determined.

UPDATE: Further semi-obvious thought: If it turns out to be true, it doesn't matter who leaked it or why. No questioning the timing in that case, no ducking the issue by whining about Democrat nasty tricks. Leave the Josh Marshall tactics in the toilet where they belong.

And if it isn't true? Then Allah will be really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, fucking really interested in knowing who started the rumor. Really. Really. R-E-A-L-L-Y. Really.

Really.

And he won't not be the only one.

UPDATE: The Times says the suspect, who hasn't been named, works in Doug Feith's office and isn't the big cheese CBS is cracking him up to be.

In a statement released Friday night, the Pentagon said that the Department of Defense " has been cooperating fully with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time."

"The investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy," the statement continued. "Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through this individual. To the best of D.O.D.'s knowledge, the investigation does not target any other D.O.D. individuals.''

One United States official said that he did not know why the desk officer would have passed on the information and that he could not assess the potential damage. "He had a certain expertise and had access to things, but he wasn't a policymaker," the official said.

There are "red states" and there are red states.

HANOI (AFP) - The question of whether presidential candidate John Kerry was a coward or a leader during the Vietnam War might be raging in the United States, but on the streets of Hanoi people hope for just one result from the American election -- the exit of George W. Bush. . . .

The mere mention of the former Texas oilman visibly rattles a souvenir saleswoman in central Hanoi but Kerry, who possibly killed Vietnamese nationals during his service in the war, seems not to matter. "Bush is a crazy man," she said. "We hate him. Believe me, no one in Vietnam likes him." . . .

Fueling the Bush-hatred: Righteous indignation over Iraq and a healthy dose of socialist propaganda.

[W]hile the government has been silent on the US elections, in the pirated-DVD shops of Hanoi the anti-Bush polemic by outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore, "Fahrenheit 9/11", is readily available. . . .

Vietnamese people make the comparison between the conflict on their soil and the war in Iraq, which they have condemned from the start.

"Bush only likes to fight," said a souvenir saleswoman. "We should bring him to the hospital for mental treatment. During the war in Iraq, I supported Saddam Hussein as he is a great man for his country."

The worst part, though? Young Vietnamese having forgotten the men who fought for their way of life.

Agriculture student Le Duc Vuong, 20, said Bush was inextricably linked with Iraq. "I don't support Bush because of his war in Iraq," he said. "He is strong in fighting terrorists but he brings about deaths, devastation, not peace."

And Kerry? "I don't have much information about the other man."

The older people remember.

UPDATE: The flip side. And the flop side.

Klan Burns Cross on Black Family's Lawn; Reason Unclear

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Miki's got Olympic fever! "I'm close to the German spirit, says Theodorakis."

Top of the page right now at Lebanon's Daily Star "news"paper: Augustus Richard Norton, advisor to the Kerry campaign on Mideast foreign policy, rambles on unchallenged by the Star's reporter and promises Arab readers that "Kerry's presidency would mark a return to 'serious diplomacy.' " How serious? This serious:

"Kerry is much more likely to change the process of consultation, much more likely to listen instead of acting thoughtlessly, much more likely to try and cooperate fully with international groupings, such as the EU and the UN."

He said a Kerry administration would probably regard the unofficial Geneva Accord drawn up last year by former Israeli and Palestinian government officials and peace negotiators as a "template" for resuming the Mideast peace process.

"I think it very likely we will specifically see Kerry embrace that kind of model," he said.

The accord would give Palestinians a homeland in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank and divide Jerusalem while denying the return of the vast majority of Palestinian refugees to their former homes.

Someone had better tell Arafat about that last part; his national security advisor reads the document differently. There's lots more good stuff at LGF about the Geneva Accord if you have the time, but if you don't, this Jeff Jacoby piece from December will give you the gist of it.

Something else very much worth noting from the Norton interview: Although he never explicitly condemns the idea, he sure doesn't sound too enthused about taking out Iran's nuclear reactors. Allah concedes that the response to such an attack could be dangerous, but then, as a wise man once presicently put it,

The path of reform is strewn with risks for the present leaders and for the opposition, as well as for outside players. Nonetheless, if the perils of reform invite anxiety, the dangers of clinging to the authoritarian status quo are even more unsettling.

UPDATE: Speaking of authoritarian status quos, the editor of the Daily Star tries thinking outside the box and comes up with a proposal to limit Arab dictators to 25-year terms.