The defenestration of Freeman

No joke. The attempted sinking of USS Liberty was not a case of mistaken identity. The attack proceeded over several hours, from air and sea, with our oversize port flag flying in plain sight.

Read survivor Lt. James Ennes' book.
http://www.ussliberty.org/jimsbook.htm

The Pollard and Rosen cases of Israeli espionage against the US are not isolated, and may be dwarfed by todays networked penetration.

"Breaking the Taboo on Israel's Spying Efforts on the United States"
http://www.alternet.org/audits/130891/breaking_the_taboo_on_israel%27s_spying_efforts_on_the_united_states/

Why isn't there an NIE on the strategic implicatons of Israel's nuclear force?

Nobody knows.

There is no evidence that iran has a nuclear weapons program and some evidence they don't.

But when it comes right down to it, that isn't the issue. We either have to trust them not to build one, or else we can make sure they don't. And if we don't trust them not to, the only way is to force them not to.

Since we don't trust them, there is no alternative to war unless they surrender before our attack.

They can't prove they aren't building nukes. There's no possible way for them to prove that, except to let our spies inspect everything they have and look through all their records and make sure they have no secrets. Therefore we will think they are building nukes until after we have done whatever it takes to prevent them from building nukes by sheer physical force.

If that was so "mistakenly" why did DNI Dennis Blair repeated it this week in Congress hearings ?

Because the best evidence we have says they don't have a nuclear bomb program at the moment.

But that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether they have a nuclear bomb program or not. What matters is that we do not accept the possibility that they might get a nuclear bomb project someday. As long as that's our stand, it doesn't matter what they do. Any response except unconditional surrender is the same as building nuclear weapons as far as we're concerned.

If you criticize a country chances are someone will speak up and call you stupid for doing so. If Mr. Freeman can't take that sort of heat he shouldn't be in the position anyway.

There were various complaints that his alleged bias would result in distorted NIE reports. He claims he quit because he wanted the NIE reports to be trusted. It makes some sense, depending on who they can get for his replacement.

As for the links, it does not matter if the source is Newsweek, the NY Times, or Israeli Propaganda Weekly. If the information presented is accurate then complaining about where it came from is just dumb.

I agree. However, it's an interesting separate issue how much the Israeli disinformation campaign succeeds in spreading false information. Freeman specifically denies these claims, pointblank. He says he's never lobbied for anybody, ever. He has never been paid by any foreign government. If these claims -- which he stakes his reputation on -- are false, why did NY Times not do factchecking before it repeated the zionist lies?

The question that should be asked is if those links constitute a critical conflict of interests. My guess is that they did and that is why he is no longer being considered for that position.

The public claim is that he chose to withdraw for his own reasons. It's possible he was required to do so. No evidence one way or another.

My one encounter with the Iraqi police left me furious and disgusted. My thinking is that many western reports might feel the same.

That certainly makes sense. American military personnel and contractors are immune to any legal consequences in iraq, from iraqis. When it's americans who might not be immune, iraqi police might be tempted to take out their frustrations. Plus westerners are rich and potential sources of money, both for kidnappers and police.

Combine this with the fact that many stringers they used turned out to be working for the insurgents and the number of times reporters got burned by this and it explains why the reporters stopped interviewing Iraqis.

How was it confirmed that the stringers were working for the insurgents? Stringers who wanted to make money might have wanted to provide something exciting even if they weren't working for insurgents. The "insurgent" meme says something about your mindset, doesn't it? That word implies that there's a functioning government to insurge against. "the insurgents" gives the impression that there might be one unified insurgency. But of course, iraqi stringers were not reliable. There is no reliable source for news in iraq, generally. Everybody who knows anything lies about it, or at least enough of them do that you can't tell who's right unless you already know. Easier to just believe the american cover story....

Unfortunately, integrity is a virtue that most Iraqis value but do not practice.

And far too many americans. I speak from years of experience in DC. Perhaps it's better in Topeka, but I tend to doubt it.

Israel, engaged in a desperate two front war, deliberately commits an attack on their biggest supporter? Does this make any sense?

It's a puzzle. At the time the USA was not israel's biggest supporter, that came after the war. But why did they attack a US ship? They claim it was an accident, which is impossible, so until the israeli records are released all we have to go on are conspiracy theories.

A larger view of the context (Israel did not know it was there, an Egyptian military vessel was also in the area, the history of using false flag operations in the area) says to me it was an accident

No, that dog won't hunt. The israelis sent a series of strongly-worded demands that the ship leave the area. You can't claim they didn't know it was there. The initial air attack was done precisely enough to disable every rado antenna. You can't claim they didn't get a good look. The later patrol boats that machine-gunned the liferafts and collected them couldn't possibly have failed to notice it was a US ship. The egyptian ship was nowhere in the area and had absolutely no business being in that area, although it's vaguely possible the israelis thought it was.

Here's some evidence for the most charitable interpretation I can give it: The US Navy claimed it sent eight or so urgent messages to the Liberty telling it to leave the area. Each of them was somehow diverted, they were accidentally delayed or sent to the wrong place. I see two plausible explanations for that.

1. Somebody in the US Navy was defying the israeli strongly-worded demands. "What are they going to do if we stay there and keep spying on the egyptian communications? Sink the ship?" That somebody stopped the warning from getting to the Liberty.

2. After all hell broke loose, various people in the US Navy played CYA. They had warnings inserted into the records to make it look like they did everything they should have to warn the Liberty, but failed through no fault of their own. They then pushed for a new, better military communication system.

#1 leads to my charitable thought. The israelis demanded that the Liberty go away or else. The US Navy thought they wouldn't dare attack a US ship, and decided to make them back down. The israelis made a plan to sink the Liberty quickly, with no word to the US Navy what happened. One hour the ship is there, sometime later they notice it didn't check in, they try to raise it and there's no answer. They send planes over to find it that see nothing. They ask the israelis what happened and the israelis answer that it's a dangerous war zone and they had suggested that ship didn't belong there.

And then the sailors on the Liberty got a radio signal out before they were sunk, on an improvised antenna that nobody knew they could build so fast. The US government found out. The israeli navy gave the liferafts back and offered assistance. A giant embarrassment to everybody.

It could have been a game of Chicken played between the US Navy and the israeli Navy that just got out of hand.

But the israelis attacking the Liberty by accident? No way. They couldn't possibly have been that clumsy and still come so close to achieving their goals.