The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Bottom line: Saberi was a spy

    By acanuck on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 6:37pm |

    After all the hand-wringing over Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American "free-lance journalist" jailed in Iran for espionage, can we now finally concede the obvious?

    She was indeed a spy. Just not a very good one.

    The TPM main page links to a New York Times article that lays out in detail, mostly in her own lawyer's words, the evidence arrayed against her, much of which hadn't been reported till now: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html

    Her confession, possession of classified material, secret trips to Israel, recruiting meetings with the CIA, and a debunking of her alibi that she was acting for NPR or the BBC -- the Times does everything but spell out that the initial court verdict (and eight-year sentence) was fair. Saberi is free today simply because Iran has decided to suck up to the Obama administration.

    Look, the United States does spy on other countries. Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless you get caught. 

    Where, as in Tehran, the United States has no diplomats, it's forced to rely on journalists, businessmen and tourists -- almost always dual citizens -- for intelligence-gathering. It's a fact of life, as is the orchestrated outcry over freedom of the press and politically motivated prosecution when one of these ad-hoc agents gets arrested. Amazingly, much of the public still mindlessly buys into the standard State Department denials.

    Comments

    Are you approving what Iran did to her?


    by MiddleClassBill (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 12:20am

    Letting her go with a slap on the wrist? Yeah, sure.
    I definitely wouldn't want to spend eight years in an Iranian prison. But that's the risk you run when you sign on to the espionage game, whether for the money, for the thrill, or for love of your country.
    Bill, can you read that NYT story and honestly maintain Saberi was an innocent victim of circumstances? What's most telling are the quotes from NPR and BBC, which make clear she wasn't working on their behalf. Why do you think the NYT asked them? Because, although the article doesn't spell it out, that was part of her cover story.
    Look, I'm not arguing that spying on other countries is morally wrong -- just that it's illegal and really, really dangerous.
    Try this thought experiment: she's an Iranian-American translating for the State Dept. and a similar sequence of events transpire.
    She's in for 30 to life, and there's no way the president steps in to get her sentence commuted.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 1:52am

    I would not be shocked if she were a spy--spies exist--but the evidence described in the article sounds weird. What kind of spy hangs on to a six year old formerly classified document? And why did she have to go to Israel, twice, to meet with her handler or whomever? Why not come back to the U.S., which would be much less suspicious. And if the Iranians knew that she went to Israel, the trips can't have been all that secret. Nor am I following the alibi bit. In Iraq, you mean? If she said that she had been working for NPR and BBC, why wouldn't the article spell it out?


    by ☠enghis (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 12:30pm

    "Journalist" is one of the most common covers for "intelligence asset" in the real world. The tasks of a journo are such that it provides what any spy might want - access to people, places, and things.

    And hey, No Class Bull(shite): Do we here in the US not also imprison spies?

    Personally, I think lowlife scum like Jonathan Pollard ought to rot in prison, and then the worms can have him. Just to remind casual readers, he sold out our Navy submarine fleet to the Israelis, who turned around and sold the info to the Russians in exchange for a few refuseniks. Some "allies" we have there in the Middle East, huh?


    by The Old Grouch (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 3:57pm

    I heard much of this "evidence" in NPR in the past week, but I think most was unknown till now because the court proceedings were held in secret. The media didn't report anything till now because they had nothing to report except the verdict.

    It is possible she was a spy, but I don't think we have nearly enough information to be sure about it.


    by oleeb (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 4:38pm

    Like I said, not a very good spy.
    The NYT article, based as it is on third-party accounts, leaves a lot of loose threads. We don't know, for example, when the Iranians learned of her trips to Israel; it clearly was after the fact.
    Much of the weirdness and confusion you refer to originates in her confession: She says she talked to CIA recruiters before leaving the U.S., but didn't take their proposal seriously. Then she comes across a document in an Iranian government office, and copies it "out of curiosity."
    By the time she gets to trial, her story seems -- and I'm simply inferring from the fact NYT looked into the question -- to have become that she was researching a story about the long-finished Iraq War for NPR or BBC. The NYT found no basis for that claim.
    One of her lawyers stated today that her initial story of being charged with illegally buying a bottle of wine is also not true.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 6:25pm

    This is supposed to be a reply to Genghis.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 6:26pm

    See out-of-position reply below.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 6:27pm

    She said that she made up the story about a former official proposing that she work for the CIA. I don't have enough information to know whether she was lying to try to get out of jail or whether she was telling the truth.

    And your point on NPR - she was working for them. The article says that when she was in Iran she did reporting for NPR. NPR is not disputing that. NPR is simply saying that the documents she had were not part of her NPR work. I don't see how that statement by NPR makes her guilty.

    I don't know how you're so sure that NPR and BBC were part of her cover story. Like you said - the article certainly doesn't say that.


    by MiddleClassBill (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 11:11pm

    Bill, neither of us knows for sure, and neither of us is going to convince the other.
    But I am baffled that she could supposedly think "making up" a story about contacts with CIA recruiters would help keep her OUT of jail.
    Saberi will spend the next few days in Vienna, unwinding with her parents, before talking to the media. We'll see what her story is then; my guess is it will still leave a lot of questions unanswered.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 5:27pm

    I have no idea how smart this person is. But I know that once my 10 year-old son told a bully at school one day that his daddy was a police officer. He was trying to avoid getting beat up. When I read the NYTimes story that's what it reminded me of. People will say crazy things when they're desperate.


    by MiddleClassBill (not verified) on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 5:33pm