Don't know who she is. Here is what that wild-eyed radical WIlliam Buckey
thinks. As surprised as I am to agree with him, nonetheless -- Plame was
working for this country. You can wiggle all you want, but if it's ok to
endanger her, why not TIme while you are at it?
Dana
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November 01, 2005, 1:24 p.m.
Who Did What?
Covert questions.
The hot-blooded search for criminality in the matter of Cheney/Libby/Rove
has not truly satisfied those in search of first degree venality. Very soon
after the indictment of Mr. Libby, the tricoteuses glumly conceded that no
conspiracy has been uncovered. It is not alleged that Mr. Cheney whispered
to Mr. Libby that he should conceal the truth from the grand jury or the
special prosecutor. The great blast of publicity came from the technical
exposure of Mr. Libby to (in his case, at his age) a life term in jail, plus
a million-odd-dollar fine. If John Jones is hauled in and word is given out
that if found guilty he will be hanged and his severance pay confiscated,
the public's attention will be drawn to his crime even if it was to double
park.
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One
commentator on television wrested his way free from the allure of
prospective impeachments long enough to focus not on any contradiction in
what Libby said to the grand jury and to the FBI and to the special
prosecutor. Rather, to the root cause of the disturbance. This had to do
with revealing that Valerie Plame Wilson was secretly in the employ of the
Central Intelligence Agency, using a cover employer to disguise her
affiliation.
The revelation of a covert affiliation can have terminal consequences, as
the interrupted career of Colonel Penkovsky (1919-1963) bloodily
illustrates. Most duplicities along this line are relatively innocent, but
the protections given are not only psychologically important, they are
marginally life-saving.
An autobiographical illustration. When in 1951 I was inducted into the CIA
as a deep cover agent, the procedures for disguising my affiliation and my
work were unsmilingly comprehensive. It was three months before I was
formally permitted to inform my wife what the real reason was for going to
Mexico City to live. If, a year later, I had been apprehended, dosed with
sodium pentothal, and forced to give out the names of everyone I knew in the
CIA, I could have come up with exactly one name, that of my immediate boss
(E. Howard Hunt, as it happened). In the passage of time one can indulge in
idle talk on spook life. In 1980 I found myself seated next to the former
president of Mexico at a ski-area restaurant. What, he asked amiably, had I
done when I lived in Mexico? "I tried to undermine your regime, Mr.
President." He thought this amusing, and that is all that it was, under the
aspect of the heavens.
We have noticed that Valerie Plame Wilson has lived in Washington since
1997. Where she was before that is not disclosed by research facilities at
my disposal. But even if she was safe in Washington when the identity of her
employer was given out, it does not mean that her outing was without
consequence. We do not know what dealings she might have been engaging in
which are now interrupted or even made impossible. We do not know whether
the countries in which she worked before 1997 could accost her, if she were
to visit any of them, confronting her with signed papers that gave
untruthful reasons for her previous stay that she was there only as
tourist, or working for a fictitious U.S. company. In my case, it was 15
years after reentry into the secular world before my secret career in Mexico
was blown, harming no one except perhaps some who might have been put off by
my deception.
The great question here is Robert Novak. It was he who published, in his
column, that Mrs. Joseph Wilson was a secret agent of the CIA. I am too
close a friend to pursue the matter with Novak, and his loyalty is a
postulate. What was going on? If there are mysteries in town, that surely is
one of them, the role of Novak.
The importance of the law against revealing the true professional identity
of an agent is advertised by the draconian punishment, under the federal
code, for violating it. In the swirl of the Libby affair, one loses sight of
the real offense, and it becomes almost inapprehensible what it is that
Cheney/Libby/Rove got themselves into. But the sacredness of the law against
betraying a clandestine soldier of the republic cannot be slighted.
* * *
On 11/9/05, Sam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> You have to know who to believe. :)
>
> Interesting op-ed by Victoria Toensing
> http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508
>
> Seems to imply the CIA was out to get the President. Either to protect
> themselves from the administration cleaning house or to cover their
> asses for missing the 9/11 signs.
>
>
> On 11/9/05, Dana wrote:
> > Sam Clinton and Kerry may also have thought that Iraq had WMDs but they
> did
> > not intimidate into silence the CIA analysts who thought otherwise, and
> they
> > did not bring the considerable resources of the federal government to
> bear
> > on those who dared to say they were wrong. That is the difference.
> >
> > Dana
>
>
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