Juan Cole: Plame Case Thrown Out-National Security Imperilled

[babylonsister]

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=38923

Plame Case Thrown Out;
National Security Imperilled

snip//

What the United States therefore needs most to secure our country is smart, knowledgeable, skilled and dedicated counter-terrorism and counter- proliferation professionals. Without such persons, we are in danger of being hit hard by smart, knowledgeable, skilled terrorists.

But here is the problem. If you are a NOC, you are living a lie. Your very identity as CIA would potentially put everyone around you in danger, especially your friends, contacts and the agents you are running in foreign countries. You yourself could easily be assassinated on a trip abroad if your identity became known.

So you would depend for your survival and for the survival of your friends and contacts on the US government's willingness and ability to keep your identity secret. If you thought that the vice president might casually betray your identity if he thought it politically convenient to do so, you'd be crazy to put yourself in that position.

So, we've had the Plame Wilson affair, the profound hostility of Cheney Inc. to the reality-based CIA (for not going along with its fantasy machine), the Cheney project of blaming CIA director George Tenet for his own mistakes with regard to Iraq, and the changes and rotations in top personnel. Competent Middle East analysts like former Deputy Director of Intelligence Jami Miscik have been forced out.

So ask yourself, how many really smart competent people are going to volunteer to follow in Valerie Plame Wilson's footsteps and take all those risks for a job that does not pay all that well, knowing that the Cheney sorts might at any moment ruin their lives for petty political reasons?

So Bush and Cheney have deeply damaged recruitment, morale and efforts among our counter-terrorism agencies at the same time that their greedy and duplicitous occupation of a major Arab Muslim country, Iraq, is generating a new terrorist threat against the American homeland. They are creating the perfect storm.

So the judge threw out the lawsuit. But we will all be paying the damages.

Bush-Cheney have disarmed us and galvanized the enemy. They are traitors, and if something happens to America, it will be in some important part their fault.

[mod mom]

1. Unfortunately * doesn't want competent smart people to oversee intel. He

prefers blind loyalists.

Excellent piece by Prof Cole.

[babylonsister]

2. Yes, to the detriment of us all. nt

[kestrel91316]

3. Then let the blind loyalists go NOC. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Or "yes" men. That is george's MO. Anyone who will kiss his a$$, is golden.

He is that insecure. He is the quintessential CEO.

[poverlay]

4. Aside from the many horrors with high death counts that the bfee is responsible for

this pisses me off more than any other. Even my fingers start sputtering and I can barely type I'm so angry. Every single person who has voted for, and continued to support Bush is a traitor not only to this country, but to me and my family. Even the ones I am moderately close to don't realize how angry I am. When they find out it is going to be a brutal and pain-filled moment for them.

I will never, ever forget how they put my family's safety at risk for a f---ing political game!

I know you pretty much already said all of this, but a simple "ditto" just doesn't cover it sometimes. Definitely #5 rec.

~P

[babylonsister]

7. I didn't say it, but I agree with you, and we should all be angry at the

shambles the dimson and his merry band of criminals have made of so many things.

[wildbilln864]

5. Kicked! n/t

[Mojorabbit]

8. What I don't understand

is why the CIA has not kicked some ass in the way only they can do because of this. You know they have to be pissed off. Even after the purge there must be a boatload of people left who are furious. I know a lot of leaks are probably coming from them but you would think they would be helping to take these people down in a big way.