The excerpt below is posted with the full permission, even encouragement, of the author, who wants his essays to be read by as many people as possible.
From No Quarter, by Larry Johnson
Toensing Doesn't Know Dick About Val
By Brent Budowsky
(NOTE from Larry C Johnson: I have been pressing Brent to write on this issue for several weeks and he has kindly obliged. The actual title of his article is: The CIA Leak Case And The Truth That Keeps Us Free. Much more professional and high-minded, which is typical of Brent. Hopefully this will put to bed the canard that Victoria Toensing is some kind of qualified expert on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Bullocks.)
The CIA Leak case embodies all that has gone wrong with American national security policy, the war in Iraq, and America's role in the world during the Presidency of George W. Bush.
I began working on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act shortly after CIA station chief Richard Welch was murdered in Greece when his identity was disclosed. The orginal sponsor was my boss Senator Lloyd Bentsen, who I worked very closely with over many years on this matter, along with representatives of CIA management, legal counsel, public affairs and representatives of clandestine services in extensive meetings to develop legislation to best protect those who serve our country covertly…
The CIA leak case is about the obsession and ideology that disrespects facts, and disrespects truth, and declares Mafia-like vendettas against those who make good faith and professional efforts to ascertain them…
When the original Identities Law was drafted, we were sickened and disgusted that identities of American intelligence officers were revealed and at times led to their death, by some who were radical and extreme and serving the interests of America's enemies during the Cold War.
It never occurred to even one of us, working on those laws at that time, that the identity of a covert officer would ever be revealed by the highest officials in American government in leading newspapers and syndicated columns of high level Washington insiders. In those days the revealers of identities ended up taking refuge in Castro's Cuba, not Washington dinner parties or high level corridors of insider power.
It is immaterial whether the CIA Identities Act was technically violated. In my view it probably was; reasonable people can disagree; Patrick Fitzgerald said that lies threw sand in the gears of justice, so perhaps we will ultimately find out, perhaps not…
Lloyd Bentsen has left us, but I have no doubt for a second that he would have been outraged, sickened, nauseated and disgusted by this compromise of a covert officer. I have no doubt that virtually every Senator and every Member of Congress who worked on this law would be outraged, sickened, nauseated and disgusted by this compromise of a covert officer, and in my humble opinion that includes Senator Barry Goldwater, whose name Ms. Toensing invoked in making her case for her cause.
I knew Barry Goldwater. Barry Goldwater was a patriot. Ms. Toensing is no Barry Goldwater if she suggests he would not be sickened and disgusted by these leaks…
Brent Budowsky is a contributing editor to Fighting Democrats News Service. He is a former aide to ex-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and to the House Democratic Leadership with then-Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.) as chief deputy whip. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.
Note to the age impaired: In the 1988 debate between vice presidential candidates Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle, Quayle compared himself to John Kennedy. Bentsen replied, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” (
Source)
Click the title, above, to read more.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
