(Wall Street Journal) R. James Woolsey - I recommended against clemency for Jonathan Pollard early in the first Clinton administration when I was director of Central Intelligence, but now, nearly two decades later, I support his release. What would I say has changed? The passage of time. Pollard has been incarcerated for over a quarter of a century under his life sentence. Of the more than 50 recently convicted Soviet bloc and Chinese spies, only two - Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen - also received life sentences, and two-thirds of these some-50 enemy spies served or have been sentenced to less time than Pollard has already served. There is absolutely no reason for Pollard to be imprisoned for as long as Ames and Hanssen, and substantially longer than spies from other friendly, allied, and neutral countries. For those hung up for some reason on the fact that he's an American Jew, pretend he's a Greek- or Korean- or Filipino-American and free him.
2012-07-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive