1 Boring Old Man

Another doozie/ Coming IN JUNE, to a court room near you…
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=17606&intcategoryid=3

… “It bears mention that the more specific the details of the alleged cooperation between the two governments, and the more congruent the relationship between the alleged policy cooperation and” the national defense information, or NDI, “at issue in the case, the more probative such cooperation becomes,” he ruled.

“Testimony that disclosures of alleged NDI were viewed by defendants, or their contacts in the diplomatic establishment, as beneficial to the United States’ interests is thus exculpatory,” he ruled.

That’s key because the 1917 statute being used to prosecute Weissman and Rosen criminalizes the receipt of “information relating to the national defense” which the possessor has “reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”

The prosecution had hoped to show that Rosen and Weissman knew they could be harming the United States by communicating to the three Israeli diplomats the classified information they allegedly received from U.S. officials.

Just got this in ref. to above article.

Ken Pollack, mentioned below, is the author of “The Gathering Storm, the Case for Invading Iraq,” and part of the lobby/neocon propaganda assault on the American public consciousness to convince us that the war was the thing to do which also included numerous columns in the New Yorker to win over the intelligentsia. When one is considering indictments for war crimes, Pollack should not be ignored. He is also Ted Koppel’s son-in-law.

Steven Aftergood, who the media has chosen to transform the crime of the AIPAC agents into a 1st Amendment issue, which it isn’t,, formerly worked as an engineer in Israel and rose to the defense of Israel, defending its position in the attack on the USS Liberty when it was exposed by Jim Bamford in “Body of Secrets.”

“I will not obsess about the Libby Trial Jury all weekend.”
How’s that working for you?

Excerpt from Sy Hersh novella:
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070305fa_fact_hersh

RE Cheney’s office

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.