Triple Leak Hypocrisy - these leaks and lies are killing US!

It has recently been disclosed in Libby's court documents that on the word of Vice President Cheney President Bush authorized selective leaks of the classified National Intelligence Estimate that was to somehow prove in the media that there were going to be found WMD in Iraq, thus justifying our invasion there on pre-emptive national security grounds.

These grounds were being challenged because after three months in Iraq the WMD weren't found and because American Hero Ambassador Joseph Wilson, experienced in African diplomacy, business, and security issues found in 2002 that the Niger yellowcake Uranium story was probably a canard. He was sent there by the CIA, and he reported that back. Nonetheless, in Bush' 2003 State of the Union Address to Congress, the President repeated this canard. In June of 2003 Wilson started circulating this meme to the press and in July he published an OpEd about it.

At which point the Bush/Cheney Admin started to smear Wilson, his conclusions, and even started spreading the rumor that his wife, a CIA WMD expert, sent him to Niger as a nepotistic boondoggle. Imagine, Niger, one of the poorest places on the planet, being a junket.

Hypocrisy #1:

Wasn't this whole Iraq war supposed to be about enhancing WMD security against terrorists? These leaks might kill US!

The post-invasion lies in July 2003 and the Whitehouse sanctioned leaking, whisper campaigning, and outing of one of the CIA's top African WMD experts probably serious damaged our ability to collect real intelligence on the source and distribution of much of the world's uranium! Africa is a hot spot for Al Quaida, too. What little we could find out before, and we were, let's face it, practically flying blind for our 40 million dollars, now we can find out even less.

The Whitehouse's politically-inspired leaks and character assassination of Wilson and his intelligence officer wife has probably ended their careers as people that can be useful to help guard our national security. Valerie Plame Wilson was one of the world's leading WMD experts. Now she's out of business, and so are her intelligence assets (informers, handlers, sources) across Africa, and forget about the front companies she used. The whole intelligence operation is probably trashed now, and people that were part of it might be at risk now, too.

Plus, our national security is compromised. What we don't know about this region and its uranium resources can sneak up on us without warning, in the form of a mushroom cloud, to use the Administration's terrifying words from 2003.

o|

On a tangentially related issue, how pitiful is it to have much of your staff attack a man's wife to get payback and score political points! And to do all this at reckless disregard for our national security. Isn't this an impeachable high crime? Isn't this traitorous?

Every time Bush puts on his cowboy hat and 'regular tough guy' routine, he is being a hypocrite, because at heart he is a scheming High School girl.


Hypocrisy #2:

Bush is only against national security leaks that affect him politically, like the NSA domestic spying and wiretapping disclosure.

But when his staff leaks on his behalf, it is fine and worth stonewalling investigation for as long as possible, even if those leaks compromise and threaten CIA operatives, their front companies, and their enablers working on active missions.

Meanwhile, let's face it, unless there is a dual impeachment of Bush and Cheney, no one in this Bush Administration debacle is going to serve time for these crimes. Bush will abuse his pardon powers one Friday afternoon or on a holiday weekend and they will all quietly get off, like Cap Weinberger did one Christmas Eve when Bush1 saw Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh got a little too close to proving that fellow co-conspirators in the Reagan Administration sold arms to embargoed enemy Iran [while we were arming their enemy Iraq



(including with WMD)] and used the profits to arm the embargoed hothouse revolutionaries, the Contras, against Nicaragua, and who knows what else was involved in that can of worms...

This whole Patrick Fitzgerald prosecution is like Kabuki Theatre. It will play out in a ritualized stylized format with barely comprehensible gestures eventually signifying nothing (if you don't know Japanese or the conceits of that theatre form).

This sort of limited-term Presidential politics is being played like a football team in which the highest point getter keeps possession of the ball and runs the clock down. That is, they: Lie, stall and stonewall for years and for as long as possible. Keep the public bored and distracted from legalistic details. Keep abusing power. Maybe prop up your friends and distract or rally the public with bombing Iran, an invasion, or a trumped up terror-threat (fear or fervor). Then pardon the whole gang when most aren't looking and after most don't even care.


Hypocrisy #3:

Bush committed in 2003 to finding the leakers of the Valerie Plame CIA Operative's cover and to fire them in 2003.

But Bush knew all along the whole network of leakers and liars, including himself. When is he going to keep his word by firing Cheney, Rove, Hadley, and then resign? Not likely.

It is not enough to Impeach Bush, we must co-Impeach Bush and Cheney.


o| On another, related tangent, I am alarmed and saddened that three of our nation's top counter-terrorist experts have been 'put out of business' during the Bush2 era.

1. Valerie Plame Wilson. WMD/Africa expert.

2. John P. O'Neill was the FBI's top anti-jihadist-terrorism expert from 1995 until he was practically forced out in 2001 due to agency and State department politics when he started making too many connections to the Saudis and wouldn't back down under pressure.

"O'Neill's rise through the ranks at the bureau began to slow as ... by losing a bureau cell phone and Palm Pilot, improperly borrowing a car from a safe house, and losing track of a briefcase with sensitive documents for a short period." (from Wikipedia)

Word has it that O'Neill's colleagues may have 'helped' him lose his briefcase during a staff conference, setting him up. Fed up with all that, he left the Agency and joined the Port Authority as Chief of Security for the World Trade Center in August 2001. He died during the attacks on the WTC the following month.

3. Linda Franklin, an FBI counter-terrorism analyst died from a gunshot while she was leaving a Home Depot during the Beltway 'Sniper' Shootings spree in October 2002. She worked with distinction at the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, the only FBI division slated at the time to move to Homeland Security. Ms. Franklin was a cyber-security expert. Her murder was not tried or thoroughly investigated, since there were so many other charges against Army veteran and Nation of Islam convert John Allen Muhammad. It seems strange to me that the FBI wouldn't do their own investigation and push for a prosecution against the murderer of one of their own.

In any case, at least Valerie Plame Wilson is still alive, even though her life is still at risk because of the Bush Administration for serving our country.

These three counter-terrorism experts in the CIA and FBI sacrificed a great deal for our country and accomplished a lot to make us safer.