It is hard to keep it all straight. That's the
intended effect. The flacks around
the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair,
(black ops wet work? but whose?)
vis-a-vis Dr. Kelly, seemed to have succeeded into
turning the BBC's brave (for them) reporting into an
issue about their credibility instead of
he-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair's
credibility. Meanwhile, CIA Director George TooNice,
who took responsibility (afterall, there is no
President, only a _resident) for the "sixteen words"
(of course, there are 120+ words that constituted
untruths in the disputed SOTU)went up to Capitol
Hill, and behind closed doors, pointed his finger back
at the White House and said a National Security
Council staffer insisted the Niger Uranium story stay
in...We know this from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)
who was behind those closed doors...But there is
precious little about it in the "US mainstream news
media." It was reported for a day, denied by the White
House and buried...along with so many other outrages,
including the one detailed in this marvelous Buzzflash
editorial....Tell me, how do you think Charles Wilson
and his wife feel -- in the light, or perhaps more
appropriately, in the shadows of what happened to Dr.
Kelly? How do you think other potential whistleblowers
feel in the shadow of Dr. Kelly's fate?
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/07/21.html
July 21, 2003 EDITORIAL ARCHIVES
Some Dare Call It Treason
A Story of Two Unidentified "Senior Administration" Officials Who Allegedly Betrayed the National Security of the United States: No Response from the White House, and No Coverage in the Mainstream Press.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
If David Corn, the Washington editor for The Nation is correct in his suspicions, two unidentified "senior administration officials" are guilty of betraying our national security. (see A White House Smear)
What is their crime against the people of the United States of America, if it is true? It would be an unforgivable treason: these two Bush administration officials allegedly revealed the identity of a CIA operative to conservative columnist Bob Novak, who printed her name in his syndicated newspaper column. (See The Mission to Niger)
The outing most likely rendered her future, present -- and much of her past work -- useless in helping to protect the people of this nation. What is the specialty of this alleged CIA operative? Tracking the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.
This is a story that reveals an alleged act of cynical treason by at least two senior Bush administration officials. In a conversation that BuzzFlash had with Corn, a top-notch political journalist whose "Capital Games" column we link to frequently, Corn cautioned BuzzFlash that one can't ascertain if the CIA operative "outing" was approved by other administration officials, including Bush. On the other hand, Corn noted that the White House has not refuted the information in Novak's column. Furthermore, if the information is true -- and Novak told Corn that he stands by his sources -- the White House hasn't fired anyone or taken the first steps toward prosecuting the "senior administration officials" in question. If this is all some bizarre misunderstanding, then the White House should clear the allegations up right quick. But they haven't, according to Corn.
Yes, it is once again a probable Bush administration betrayal that is so horrifyingly ironic, hypocritical, cynical, and destructive that it is hard to comprehend. Two Bush administration officials allegedly render a CIA operative useless, whose specialty is providing valuable information on exactly the threat that the Bush administration continues to insist justified the invasion of Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction.
If Corn's analysis is true, which it appears to be, why did the two senior Bush administration officials betray the security of the nation and "burn" a CIA operative with expertise in WMD? For two reasons, apparently: revenge and intimidation. The revenge part is explained by the fact that the alleged CIA operative is the wife of Joseph Wilson, who was a former ambassador who revealed to the Washington Post that he had informed the CIA that the Niger uranium claims were probably fraudulent. The key point in his revelation was that he had revealed this long before the infamous State of the Union address that was riddled with lies and deceptions. The other reason that the Bush officials outed his wife (although Wilson would not acknowledge to Corn that his wife is a CIA operative, but would only speak in hypotheticals) was, he believes, to intimidate others, including CIA agents and intelligence officers, from coming forth with the truth.
If true, it's the latest, and most treasonous, mafia tactic that the Bush administration has been using to intimidate patriotic Americans: "Mess with us and we will have no compunction about betraying the national security. Our first priority is enforcement of loyalty to this administration and George W. Bush, not the nation. We will intimidate and punish anyone who is disloyal, whatever the costs to America's security. We will go as far as we need to go in achieving our objectives. If you think we won't do it because it will hurt national security, we will, if that's what it takes to protect Bush and carry out our objectives."
Yes, their message is that blunt. In an editorial we wrote about why the Bush Cartel was going to invade Iraq, we observed:
In the end the Bush Cartel is banking on making the kind of impression on the world that a thug makes with a baseball bat on a car.
It's all about image and firepower. It's how the playground bully establishes himself. Pick the weakest guy in the school -- the one nobody likes much anyway -- and beat the living daylights out of him. Keep all the kids nervous and on edge. Let them think that you are a little bit mad and might just beat up on them for the fun of it. Tell them that you will protect them from the gang that lives in the next neighborhood in return for their loyalty. Make an example of anyone who challenges your leadership by denouncing them and bloodying them up. Establish a system of stool pigeons. Rummage through lockers, at your will, for any signs of betrayal. Issue warnings from time-to-time about how you have information that the other gang has plans to rape your mothers and sisters, and lay waste to your homes -- and that is why you need to trust in the playground bully from your school, because he will protect your mothers and sisters from the gang that few have ever actually encountered.
(See Muscle Beach Party)
Outing a CIA operative who specializes in tracking the trafficking of WMDs, thus rendering her useless as a CIA operative is mindboggling unless you understand that the Bush Administration is run more like a mob outfit than an elected government loyal to the United States.
After all, the true heroes -- of all people -- emerging from the Bush multiple-lie scandal are members of the intelligence community who value their professionalism and the integrity of their analysis. In essence, the Bush administration has made the CIA its enemy. According to a Guardian report, Bush or Cheney allowed Rumsfeld to put together an ad hoc "propaganda" intelligence unit (the Office of Special Plans) run out of his office for the purpose of giving skewed intelligence information that would justify a war with Iraq.
Given the fact of an obsessive media focus on one 16-word lie in a sea of Bush administration lies, we asked Corn why he thought that the media wasn't picking up on his story at all? How could the print media, in particular, ignore a likely bombshell scandal about members of the Bush administration who destroyed the usefulness of a CIA intelligence officer specializing in the very issue that the administration claimed it went to war about? How could they pass over an alleged act of treason in the Bush administration that likely damaged our national security and hunt for WMDs, now and in the future?
"I've been a journalist for 20 years in D.C., and I still can't predict what the media will pick up on," Corn told us. Still, the absence of mainstream media coverage about two Bush officials allegedly betraying our national security did leave Corn scratching his head a little. After all, he repeated, blowing her cover "undermined her past, present and future operations, which are all geared to protecting the citizens of the United States from Weapons of Mass Destruction."
As for the perennial question of why the Democrats aren't demanding an investigation of the outing of the CIA operative by Bush administration officials, Corn told BuzzFlash, "I long ago stopped asking the question: 'Why didn't the Democrats do -- well, you can fill in the blank.'"
BuzzFlash picked up the Chicago Sun-Times (a pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush Hollinger paper) on Sunday morning, July 20th, and its front page was almost entirely devoted to the sexual attack charges against Kobe Bryant, entitled "Kobe's Future In, On Court." The only other two items were: a large headline, "Catching Music Pirates: Is Your Kid Next?"; and a teaser headline for a story on the return of Scottie Pippen to the Chicago Bulls. That was it for the front page of the tabloid size newspaper.
So let's get this straight: two senior Bush administration officials allegedly undermine our national security by publicly identifying a CIA intelligence officer whose specialty is WMD. In doing so, they betray our personal safety and they betray the CIA. The American media, with the exception of David Corn's column in "The Nation," however, believes that such a story doesn't have "news value." But full court press coverage, with multiple articles on Kobe Bryant's "little problem," is worthy of page one treatment.
It's not only the two Bush administration officials who appear to have betrayed America by rendering a CIA operative useless; the media has enabled their alleged treason by not probing the "burning" of a CIA operative and exposing the truth -- one way or the other -- to the light of day.
Yes, some dare call it treason, but you won't see it on the nightly news -- and that's a form of treason in and of itself.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL