A retired engineer from New Jersey whose clandestine activities went undetected for more than two decades pleaded guilty yesterday to a criminal charge accusing him of serving as an unregistered agent for Israel. Ben-Ami Kadish passed classified documents to an Israeli handler between about 1980 and 1985, when he worked at a U.S. Army research and engineering center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., authorities say.
Kadish, 85, will face a maximum term of five years in prison when he is sentenced by Manhattan U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in February. The retiree acted out of a desire to help Israel, receiving only nominal gifts and family dinners in exchange for the 50 to 100 documents he shared, according to court papers filed by the government.
Kadish, a U.S. citizen born in Connecticut, checked classified papers out of an Army research library and passed them to an Israel official, identified for the first time by prosecutors yesterday as Yossi Yagur. Yagur photographed materials related to nuclear weapons, the F-15 fighter jet program and the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, according to court papers.
Yagur first drew attention more than 20 years ago as the handler for former Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Butner, N.C., after pleading guilty in 1986 to an espionage-related charge.
Pollard's case became the subject of ongoing international furor, and some Israeli supporters continue to lobby for his pardon or early release from prison. But through all those years, Kadish remained well below the radar.
FBI agents arrived on Kadish's doorstep in a Monroe Township, N.J., retirement community in March 2008. Their visit prompted new contact in the form of a phone call between Kadish and Yagur, who left the United States more than two decades ago, prosecutors allege.
The next day, FBI agents questioned Kadish anew, and he denied the call had taken place, according to court filings. His statements restarted the espionage investigation and led to yesterday's guilty plea to a single conspiracy charge.
During the call, federal agents say, Yagur allegedly instructed Kadish to deny any involvement, saying: "Let them say whatever they want. . . . What happened 25 years ago? You didn't remember anything."
An attorney for Kadish and a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy did not return telephone calls.
#3
It seems the value of American citizenship is not worth what it once was. Has treason become so common place that it warrants less punishment than burglary? Mr Kadish's severest punishment was investing with Bernie Madoff.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2008 15:13 Comments ||
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#5
I'm sure Mr. Kasish was indeed a native-born American citizen, possibly of Israeli parentage, Besoeker. After all, that's exactly what I am, and yet I still manage to be a loyal citizen of the United States.
One has to wonder why nobody objected at the time to his checking out such a large number of classified documents from the Army research library. Is it possible there was a great deal of sympathy for what he was doing by Picatinny Arsenal management, given that this was only a few years after Israel was almost destroyed in the Yom Kippur War? Or were they really so blind that it was only discovered in the last year that malfeasance had occurred over two decades ago?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2008 16:56 Comments ||
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#7
The retiree acted out of a desire to help Israel, receiving only nominal gifts and family dinners in exchange for the 50 to 100 documents he shared,
#8
"Yagur photographed materials related to [sic] U.S. Patriot missile defense system, according to court papers."
Receiving the documents for the Patriot missile years before the Iraq war, the IDF still didn't have a fix for a glitch in the missile batteries deployed in Israel during the 1991 Iraq War. This leads me to question the veracity of U.S. national security threat posed by the shared documents.
In other words, encrypted software is at the heart of the Patriot missile. The Patriot missile un-encrypted software was not transferred to the IDF. Also, the IDF at the time, did not have military satellites or satellites that provides GPS during 1980-1985 time frame. The IDF at the time, piggy backed off the Pentagon or CIA GEOS, with permission of course. Even if the IDF had military capable GEOS, the encrypted software of the Patriot missile couldn't communicate with an non-U.S. satellite.
I am making a lot assumptions. Just thinking out loud.
Disclaimer: I believe that any transfer of U.S. classified documents to any foreign entity constitutes treason.
#9
Beneficial to allies or not. It is the strategic decision of the sovereign government of the Unite States whether it is in the national interest to pass them on, not citizens with (or without) other loyalties. You play the game without backup, you risk the penalties. At 85 (evading consequences since age 60?) he should be glad to be able to suffer the consequences.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2008 20:08 Comments ||
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Just doing the crimes Americans won't do often
A Mexican national with a history of immigration violations and arrests has been taken into custody as a suspect in a series of sexual assaults, authorities said Tuesday. Carlos Ceron Salazar, 30, was booked into jail Monday in San Diego on suspicion of assault with intention to commit rape, mayhem and sexual battery in connection with an attack in December 2006 on a woman jogging at Miramar Lake, San Diego police said.
The woman told officers at the time that she was running about 12:30 p.m. when a man grabbed her around the neck and forced her to the ground. She fought him and bit his hand so deeply that when he yanked it away, she lost two of her teeth. She escaped and called for help, police said.
Escondido police arrested Salazar on charges of public intoxication about 1:30 a.m. Dec. 22 on North Escondido Boulevard near West Valley Parkway, Escondido Lt. Bob Benton said.
While Salazar was at the Vista jail, officials ran a routine immigration check and found that he had extensive violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack said he had multiple apprehensions and had been deported or voluntarily returned to Mexico 10 times. Further checks discovered that San Diego police and sheriff's detectives suspected him in several sexual assault cases.
ICE agents turned him over to San Diego police, Mack said. A DNA sample taken from Salazar matched DNA collected from the attack at Miramar Lake as well as DNA taken from an assault in September 2004, authorities said. In that case, a woman jogging along a trail near Community Road in Poway about 8:30 a.m. was raped by a man who came up from behind her and threw her to the ground, said sheriff's Detective Jose Baltz.
Salazar also is a suspect in an attempted sexual assault in December 2005 when a woman was attacked at Lake Poway, Baltz said.
Additional charges of rape with a foreign object and attempted rape will be sought against him, Baltz said. Sheriff's Department records show that Salazar also had been arrested in 2005 and 2006 on driving-under-the-influence charges.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2008 03:05 ||
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#2
Death penalty. Those who insist pn doing the utterly reprehensible have abrogated their right to have their existence accepted by the living. Or ship him to Pakistan, as he seems to share the ethos of a large subset of that population.
#9
Hmmm, that's where I usually go roller-blading (going tomorrow, in fact). I carry some pepper spray for dogs (or their owners), but generally one doesn't get much of a serious crime vibe at a place like that.
Meanwhile, a few miles down I-15 from the lake, TJ had more killings last year than Ramadi in 2006, or Washington, DC in the mid-80s (see other posted story above).
Semper Fi Sir and rest in peace....
He entered the U.S. Naval Academy as an undersized teenager, but Victor H. "Brute" Krulak rose to command all Marine Corps forces in the Pacific, helped develop a boat crucial to amphibious landings during World War II and spoke his mind in disagreeing with a president over Vietnam War strategy.
Lt. Gen. Krulak, a decorated veteran of three wars, died of natural causes late Monday night at the Wesley Palms Retirement Community in San Diego. He was 95.
Standing barely 5 feet 5 inches tall, he was jokingly nicknamed Brute by his academy classmates. The moniker stuck, reinforced by his direct, no-nonsense style. "There was nothing undersized about his brain," Time magazine later said.
One of Gen. Krulak's three sons -- retired Gen. Charles Krulak of Wilmington, Del. -- said his father "was proud of just being a Marine . . . He never forgot that at the end of the day, everything he did was in support of them."
As a major in the years before World War II, the senior Gen. Krulak helped create the amphibious-war doctrine that the Marines used to defeat Japan in the Pacific. He championed the Higgins boat landing craft that was involved in every World War II amphibious assault, as well as the prototype for the Amtrack vehicle still used by Marines today.
Gen. Krulak was known as a master strategist, said Mike Neil, a San Diego lawyer and retired reserve Marine brigadier general. "He brilliantly orchestrated the 1st Marine Brigade to save the day at Pusan Peninsula (during the Korean War)," Neil said.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Gen. Krulak formulated the counterinsurgency theory that would be tried out in Vietnam. His "inkblot strategy" called for small groups of Marines to go into villages and work with like-minded locals to defend them against guerrilla forces -- a plan resurrected with considerable success two years ago in Iraq.
While commanding more than 100,000 Marines in the Pacific from Before his retirement from the military after 34 years in 1968, he was considered a strong candidate for commandant, the top Marine post that his son Charles attained in 1995. "You'd be hard-pressed to name another Marine in modern times who has had as great an impact on the direction of the Marine Corps -- or, for that matter, the country," said Gary Solis, a former Marine historian and now a law professor at Georgetown University. "From the late 1930s to the 1970s, Victor Krulak had his thumbprint on absolutely everything."
As commander of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, Solis said, Gen. Krulak required every commander from the battalion level and up to pass through his Hawaii-based headquarters as they left Vietnam. Those commanders briefed him and his staff on the latest developments. "These (meetings) were crucial to his understanding of what was going on in Vietnam," Solis said.
A tenacious critic of the government's handling of the Vietnam War, Gen. Krulak wrote in the book "First to Fight" that the conflict could have been won only if the Vietnamese people had been protected and befriended and if enemy supplies from North Vietnam had been cut off. "The destruction of the port of Haiphong would have changed the whole character of the war," he said two decades after the fall of Saigon.
In a 1995 interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Gen. Krulak said he brought up the port during a meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. The conversation didn't last long after Gen. Krulak said the wrong targets were being hit. "(Johnson) got to his feet and propelled me to the door, politely. That's the last I ever saw of him," he said.
Looking back on his combat operations, Gen. Krulak said, "I never got enthusiasm out of war, and I'm convinced that the true pacifists are the professional soldiers who have actually seen it."
After leaving the military, Gen. Krulak worked for Copley Newspapers, serving at various times as director of editorial and news policy and as news media president of Copley News Service. He retired as vice president of The Copley Press Inc. in 1977 and then contributed columns on international affairs and military matters for Copley News Service.
Chuck Patrick, former chief operating officer of Copley Press and a director and executive committee member of the Copley board, said: "An airport delay of six hours turned out to be one of my greatest memories. Brute told me all about his experiences in Southeast Asia, about his good relationship with President John F. Kennedy and about how his disagreements with President Johnson probably kept him from becoming (Marine Corps) commandant."
Patrick said he and Gen. Krulak became close friends while serving on the executive committee of the Ponderay Newsprint Co., a newsprint mill in Usk, Wash.
But it was the general's annual phone calls to Patrick's daughter that touched him the most. "Brute was her Santa Claus. Every year in November, he'd check with me about how she was doing before he'd call her to tell her what she needed to work on (before Christmas arrived). Those calls meant so much . . . "
Gen. Krulak, a native of Denver, received his appointment to the Naval Academy before finishing high school. He received a waiver to bypass the Marine Corps height requirement of 5 feet 6 inches. In 1934, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps after graduating from the academy.
In December 1959, Gen. Krulak assumed command of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, a position he held until his appointment in 1962 as an adviser in the Kennedy administration.
In 1963, he was described by his World War II commander, Gen. Holland M. "Howling Mad" Smith, as "the most brilliant officer I've known in my 58 years in the Marine Corps."
A longtime Point Loma resident, Gen. Krulak was honored in 1968 as San Diego's "Citizen of the Year" by San Diego Uplifters, a group of 400 professional and business leaders.
During his retirement, Gen. Krulak was active in many community organizations. His roles included serving as president and trustee of the Zoological Society of San Diego.
Gen. Krulak and his late wife, Amy, were known for their annual Fish House Punch parties held to celebrate Gen. Krulak's Jan. 7 birthday. They started the tradition in the 1940s while living in Quantico, Va. The beverage included brandy, lime juice and apple brandy.
Besides Charles, Gen. Krulak also is survived by sons, the Rev. Victor "Vic" Krulak of San Diego and the Rev. William Krulak of Baltimore; his four grandchildren; and his 10 great-grandchildren.
Services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Jan. 8 at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station chapel. Private inurnment is scheduled for Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.
#2
I never met Brute Krulak, but I've met Mike Neil many times (his office was in the same bldg as mine) over the last ten years, and he is the nicest friendly gentleman you could ask for. Semper Fi to both and RIP, sir.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2008 15:47 Comments ||
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Wisconsin claims many beautiful cities as its own, and in what may be considered a somewhat brazen move, the state is adding Minneapolis to the list.
Yes, Minneapolis ... in Minnesota.
The Web site, at cfis.wi.gov, is being developed by a Connecticut firm for $1 million.
Visit Wisconsin's new site for campaign finance data, and there is Minneapolis' skyline next to the Capitol in Madison, which, last we checked, actually is in Wisconsin. "Minneapolis and Madison have always been close; now they are even closer," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said.
The Web site, at cfis.wi.gov, is being developed by a Connecticut firm for $1 million. I'll do it for half that, and throw in the pictures of Baltimore for free.
"Maybe in Connecticut they think Minneapolis is in Wisconsin," Minneapolis City Council Member Cam Gordon said. "We better do a better job of informing the world we're in Minnesota."
Wisconsin officials will ask that the photo be changed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
US$1.0Milyuhn to relive the days of the IRON BRIGADE???
#6
Why "Photoshop" when you already have a skyline like this or this or this.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/31/2008 8:57 Comments ||
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#7
Madison has a beautiful skyline, especially looking across Lake Monona toward the capitol.
The people in Connecticut don't know their Flyover Country geography very well.
Why was this job done in Connecticut when we have plenty of website creators here in the state? A question for my state legislator--right after I suggest that he follow two other state reps' lead and refuse the pay raise the state legislature voted itself.
#11
seething that wisconsin is considered fly over country. I'll second that. It is a term used IMO but coastal elitists who consider the Midwest and other areas of the country as little more than tax plantations. While Madison is actually quite picturesque from a distance the East Side is a dump. I suppose thats what you get with student rental housing and being the older more cramped area of town. Especially on the isthmus.
The Church of Englands Church Commissioners have gone green, investing £150 million with former US Vice-President Al Gores environmentally minded investment firm, Generation Investment Management.
On Nov 18 the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith reported that in late September the Commissioners had placed the funds with Gores boutique management firm which follows an environmentally sustainable global equities mandate. Funding for the investment came from cash and Treasury bills, he said, and not from the sale of UK equities as initially planned.
In Oct 2007 Mr Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in raising awareness of the potential threats from climate change. Generation Investment Management was founded in 2004 by Mr Gore and David Blood, former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and had almost £5 billion under management before the market collapse.
The firm invests in companies that follow socially responsible business model such as insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk, Swiss food conglomerate Nestlé, and San Franciscos New Resource Bank --- a green lender in the US.
Speaking at a press conference last March in Geneva, Mr Gore said private industry should take the lead in creating environmentally friendly market capitalism noting that more money is allocated by markets around the world in one hour than by all the governments on the planet in a full year.
The principles and ways and values that have an impact on the way markets allocate resources can have an enormous effect" in tackling climate change, he said.
Institutional investors in his fund are more attracted to the strategy we follow are managing long-term assets toward long-term goals.
"Those looking for a quick hit in the market place, to skim the cream and go somewhere else, those are not the investors attracted to this strategy, Mr Gore said, according to wire service reports.
#1
This guy is a genius. Obama should nominate him secretary of treasure: with Gore it would be easy to scam foreign governments and institution to bailout GM, banks, Madof and similar at zero cost to the American tax payer.
#5
So c'mon down to Honest Al's House O' Carbon Credits! Bad credit? No credit? No problem! We work out the terms, you reap the benefits! We eliminate Mother Gaia and pass the savings on to you! It's carbon credits! We don't even know what they are! But, take it from me, they must be important because...they got me this swell houseboat! So hurry on down to Honest Al's House O' Carbon Credits! First million customers get a free bootleg copy of my Academy Award winning "documentary" "It's a Wonderful Life" 'An Inconvienient Truth"! Bring the kids and have your picture taken with the Nobel Peace Prize! Free ice tea served by Bhuddist monks! Se habla espanol! So hurry on down! Tell 'em "Greenpeace"!
WOOF-WOOF...
As Mr. Madoff said. Applied to both parties involved. Still, what's a million and a half of priestly pensions lost, after all that's been lost recently?
"Si pero estamos mas mejor que Nuevo Orleans"!. Translation: Nawlins wins, Congrats, Mayor Nagin!
This border city across from San Diego is winding up a violent year with at least 843 killings so far in 2008, a Mexican official said Tuesday.
Baja California state attorney general Daniel de la Rosa said in a statement that 90 percent of the killings are related to drug trafficking in Tijuana, which is home to 1.5 million people.
Two men were shot to death on the city's streets the same day the tally was issued.
Tijuana's murder rate of about 56 per 100,000 is still below that of the deadliest U.S. city: New Orleans, which had about 95 killings per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007.
Officials estimate that more than 5,300 people died across Mexico in organized crime-related slayings in the first 11 months of 2008. Ireally thought there'd be a late Christmas-season push to break 1,000.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2008 16:06 ||
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#1
That's an impressive total. But, did they beat out Juarez ?
#2
That is "known killings." Numerous Central Americans are murdered every year in Mexico. Gang killers wouldn't bury bodies, because they want the killings known. Raz' haters of "indios" would take the time to cover their dirty work.
The commanding officer of the USS West Virginia's Gold Crew was relieved of duty Monday because of "a loss of confidence" in his ability to command, Navy officials said. There goes a career. Removed due to "lack of confidence" - ouch! Trident sub Captains are a select group so I guess he just didn't fit in? In-house politics?
Officials at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, where the West Virginia is homeported, said there was no specific incident that led to the removal of Cmdr. Charles "Tony" Hill. The decision was made by Capt. Daniel Mack, commander of Submarine Squadron Sixteen/Twenty.
Hill completed his first deployment as commanding officer aboard the West Virginia in November. He was commanding officer of one of two crews that alternate patrols aboard the Trident submarine.
But it's not the first time a Navy officer has been relieved of duties in the region. Since 1996, there have been at least five instances where local squadron or ship commanders were relieved, according to stories published in the Times-Union.
Most recently, Cmdr. Douglas A. Malin, commander of Helicopter Maritime Strike Wing Atlantic, was relieved of duty for loss of confidence in his ability to lead the unit. The Navy gave no reason for removing Malin from his command, based at Mayport Naval Station, in February.
In 2004, Capt. Steve Squires was relieved of command after his ship, the USS John F. Kennedy, hit and sank a small wooden boat in the Persian Gulf. No survivors were found. Crunch. What was that tiny sound? That was the sound of your career sinking, Cap'n.
Cmdr. Guy Maiden, the officer in charge of Navy Fighter Squadron 103, was removed from his command in 2004, for an undisclosed off-duty incident during a port visit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Navy officials said.
#4
This comment thread has some people who claim to know the skipper, and they say he was a screaming humiliator who berated people day and night whether they deserved it or not. The Navy never says anything in these matters...
#5
Dunno if it's in-house politics or not, but there's an endless list of ways for a navy ship captain or airwing CO to get himself relieved. During my junior-enlisted youth in the mid 70's, I was standing a quarterdeck midwatch with one of our more cynical LTJG's, who told me about an informal poll our CO conducted in the wardroom one day - this was during Jimmuh's administration, when the forces were hemorrhaging experienced personnel (eventually including your humble correspondent) at an alarming rate. The Captain asked the wardroom full of officers how many aspired to command at sea, and was saddened to see only a couple of about 15 officers raise their hands. They all knew that a CO spends his entire command tour riding the edge of a knife, just one small mistake - his or a subordinate's - away from a twilight tour counting sea lions at NAVSTA Adak. And it's probably even worse now, with a fleet less than half the size of the one we had 20 or so years ago.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
12/31/2008 0:44 Comments ||
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#6
...Keep in mind the USN is seriously touchy (and rightfully so) about its boomers and the guys who run them. If CMDR Hill had a serious case of the stupids AND somehow got through all the safeguards, the relief might have been as much CYA for the Navy as it was for his own sins.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/31/2008 5:26 Comments ||
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#7
Maybe all the captain needed was a cookie and a glass of milk.
#8
Unlike our utterly dispicable Congress which exercises civilian control over the military, the United States Navy has standards, safety and progressionalism to uphold. I salute the US Navy and thank Cmdr Hill for his service. I wish him fair winds and calm seas in his future endeavors.
#12
What Besoeker said, although in my ignorance i thought it was following seas (whatever that means). Just as war pitilessly weeds out not only the incompetent but the unlucky, so too must our armed services as soon as they become aware that one or the other holds true, for the sake of those they command.
Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) chairman Umar Shihab has advised Muslim organizations and the general public not to send volunteers to fight against Israelis on behalf of the Palestinian people. "MUI has no authority to forbid, but MUI advises Muslim organizations to avoid launching a jihad. A jihad is OK in principle, but Islam teaches us to embark on a jihad by contributing our wealth first," Umar said on Tuesday as quoted by Antara state news agency.
Indonesia's sympathy for the Palestinian people in Gaza is not only based on religious ties, but also comes from a humanitarian perspective, Umar said, adding that the Israeli forces had killed more than 360 people, most of them terrorists many of them civilians. "What they (Israel) has done is less than enough human," Umar said. The MUI condemns Israel for the attacks and demands the United Nations step in and stop the slaughter, he said.
Ultimately, this is what prevents al Qaeda from becoming a really huge organization. Muslim charities of all kinds are notorious for sticky-fingered middlemen.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Church of Englands Church Commissioners have gone green, investing £150 million with former US Vice-President Al Gores environmentally minded investment firm, Generation Investment Management. 
