Goes right along with the replacement of duty by greed in personal ambition, post-Reagan.

Considering how CIA employees get used by administrations that expect the impossible, and then are held at rather more than arm's length, or discarded, I wonder why anyone would now consider working in that agency.

The recent disclosure that Donald Rumsfeld refused to provide State Department personnel in Iraq with military guards, effectively forcing on "State" and the U.S. a mercenary force in the form of Blackwater, reminded me of an op-ed written by Paul Krugman a while back. It was at the height of the debate in April over the funding of the Iraq Supplemental bill. "Progressives" wanted to include provisions that would force a withdrawal of U.S. troops but they were over ruled by the "centrists" and "Bush dogs" of the Democrat (sic) party. Some of the reasoning against the withdrawal provisions was that it would not be supporting the troops. No matter how the wording might have been framed; no matter how specific the withdrawal was defined as fully funded; the sense put forth by Democrat party centrists and Bush dogs was that the troops weren't being supported.

But it was Krugman that had the guts to say what was really going on.

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/opinion/23krugman.html
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There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.
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No matter how a bill might have been formed for withdrawal there was a sense that Bush would ignore the provisions and simply leave the troops stranded if need be to force his will and his war. Krugman had the guts to state the reality. The self-proclaimed "protectors" of the troops didn't. The new "Fightin' Dems" wouldn't fight for their own against a malevolent president. They wouldn't fight the fight they were enabled to.

This treatment of the Wilson family is only another confirmation of the base malevolence and fundamental anti-American nature of the Bush presidency.

No surprise at all, Cheney administration policies and lies have killed a million and displaced even more. Frankly I am skeptical of the existence of any 'Al Qaeda hit teams' in the USA. The 20,000 Americans killed by guns each year are not killed by foreign 'terrorists', just homegrown ones. Republicans could care less if you live or die, unless you are unborn or a brain dead white woman.

Larry, Valerie was unable to answer several of Katie's questions on 60 Minutes because presumably they are still CIA secrets. What penalties would, or could she face if she gave the CIA the same time of day they gave her (none)? Or is she more protecting her former colleagues and assets?

What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority. Molly Ivins

What's the chances that an incoming Democratic President would appoint Valerie Plame/Wilson as Director of Operations at CIA? She clearly has the necessary background.

And withdraw all protection from Tenet. Publicly. So that anyone who was after him would know he was unprotected by the U.S. government? [Privately call it a 'sting' to pull the bad guys out of the shadows, and catch them after they did something.]

Was thinking the same thing.

All I can imagine is that they thought if they'd killed Plame after the outting that it would have been politically bad for Bush and Cheney.

But given how well Cheney plays into all Al-Qaeda's plans, I can't imagine they'd want that.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I can't imagine that either. Things have to make sense from at least one angle and this doesn't make sense from any angle. There's no payoff.

This sounds slightly ridiculous - why would Al Qaeda risk an operation like this for these three specifically named persons?
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Has there been any third party confirmation of this threat?

In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat. This was just more “good” news piled on the fact that her intelligence career was in shambles, that intelligence assets she had recruited/managed were destroyed, and that she was unable to rebut publicly false and malicious smears of her character and reputation by a bunch of partisan Republican hacks. As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.
When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Valerie contacted the office of Security at CIA and requested assistance. They told her too fucking bad and to go pound sand. They did not use those exact words, but they told her she was on her own.

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I think you might have a little consistency problem here, LJ. In this case you hear that there's a possible AQ threat against Plame and are outraged the CIA doesn't protect her. Yet when people you don't like talk about AQ threats you call them "diaper wetters"

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jul/11/terrorist_crock_of_crap_part_deux

Where is Paul Revere when you need him? Surely someone should ride and alert the neighbors. AL QAEDA IS COMING!! AL QAEDA IS COMING!! Apparently not content to let the Brits have all the fear factor fun, the Bush Administration is jumping on board the scary train. Booooooo, Al Qaeda. Sure glad that no matter what we do to fight the terrorists (you know, fight them over there . . .) those tenacious bastards make zombies look lazy and unfocused. No matter how many we kill they keep coming and keep organizing.

So here is the story courtesy of ABC's Brian Ross:

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.
But, according to the White House, there is no credible evidence of an imminent threat.

Let me suggest an alternative theory. Some malevolent, media savvy jihadi sympathizers have been watching us with great amusement since the two bozos failed to blow themselves up or kill anyone in the London/Glasgow terrorist fiasco. They now realize they only need to pass on seemingly credible threats and we, like the tigers chasing each other round the tree in Little Black Sambo, will turn ourselves into pancake batter. The aspiring terrorists do not have to do a thing beyond generate the threat. We'll inflict the rest of the wounds ourselves on ourselves.

Forget the duct tape. Grab your diapers and Depends. Start crapping yoursselves. The terrorists are coming or they are already here or they are not really a threat. It don't matter. Just run around in a circle screaming.

I agree. On the other hand they could be sold a bill of goods on the significance of their mission. Once you find some one credulous enough to believe that he will be rewarded with virgins in heaven, how hard would it be to con him about the importance of some foolish mission?

I imagine they will quickly debunk this if and when they see fit. So implying it is a silly conspiracy theory might be premature.
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I'm not implying it's silly at all, it could be absolutely true. I look forward to seeing if anyone will confirm it.

I'm just continually amused at LJ's selective outrage. If AQ supposedly threatens a friend of his he's afraid of dire consequences for her life. If someone he disagrees with talks about AQ threats we're just running in circles in panic and crapping ourselves.

Who says they really did, or that it wasn't all for show, to scare the shit out of her and make her fear for the life of her kids?

Perhaps. But this would seem to imply that the planners are insincere about their sense of the importance of the mission.  Unless your aim is, say, to exhaust the supply of the gullible, why would anyone send someone on a mission that they felt was trivial?

You know, it seems to me that the bill of goods being sold here, is that terrorists do these acts because they really believe the "virgins in heaven" crap. These are political acts, not religious acts, and they have a political purpose. Killing Karl Rove would just be silly, killing Dick Cheney wouldn't change anything and Valerie Plame was already neutralized.

I'm not one to believe the tales that come out of the White House or Larry Johnson without some skepticism. (Johnson never mentions the CIA's Joe Turner, the "Joe T" of the aluminum centrifuge tubes. The man that was probably as key to enabling the Iraq war as "Curveball.")

Still I think those concerns are irrelevant. The Wilsons were endangered by the disclosure that Valerie was a CIA agent. That alone should have warranted special security for the family. Instead a call for extra security was disdained. As for the likelihood that an agent would be a target, I seem to recall a CIA agent murdered a few years ago while in his car trying to drive into the grounds. The type of operation that 9-11 involved would not be necessary for an individual target. Yet it would generate a good deal of news coverage.

No matter how you look at this it was a message to the Wilsons that they and their children were expendable. On the simplest level they should have had extra protection from the wingnuts alone. Wasn't there a wingnut freak out over an NYTimes "House Beautiful" type story about Rumsfeld or Cheney and the personal danger that story's disclosure of the house's location represented?

Cheney reportedly never takes a consistent route to his residence and has his convoy drive at a speed through the residential area probably comparable to Blackwater in Baghdad.

The Wilson's deserved some protection but then exposing them and destroying their careers and possibly more was the whole point, wasn't it? And it still is. The White House group is a criminal organization and their tactics and methods are comparable to organized crime. Cross them and you run great risks, personal, financial and physical. Everything for them is "fair game," except themselves. The "made men."

Larry, how could you take so long to realize Tenet is a sleaze bag?  All you had to do was see him sitting behind Colin Powell at the UN in February 2003 when Powell gave his BS speech that helped con the country into supporting an invasion of Iraq to know that Tenet was a loser.

...if they'd killed Plame after the outting that it would have been politically bad for Bush and Cheney...

Why would AlQaida want to damage Cheney/Bush; their best friends?  This criminal regime is the gift that keeps on giving to AlQaeda.  They have done them NO harm, have proved their predictions accurate (the US would invade and occupy a muslim country) and have provided them with thousands of new recruits, many of whom are happily blowing themselves up. 

 Gee, AlQaida could not have ordered up a better White House.  Can anyone name one example of how Bush has hurt AlQaeda?  He let Osama's family out of the US after 911 (when Americans couldn't get home to their own families) and let the big guy himself escape ToraBora.  With enemies like Dubya, Osama doesn't need any friends. 

Jan

Its been pretty well documented that the Bush Administration has used and abused the prospect of an Al Quaeda attack to shore up any and all political arguments. They've cried 'wolf' so often its become ubiquitous.

On the other hand, assuming the episode with the FBI is true, I don't see how anyone would assume that the FBI was committing a political stunt. The earlier post you cited goes directly to that point. If you're going to make the case that Larry Johnson is inconsistent, then you're going to have to show equivalence. And there is none.

While people in this country have been nervous about terrorism over the last six years, very few of them have actually recieved notice from the FBI that they themselves are specific targets. Even if your alternative theory were fact, it doesn't diminish what the Wilson family went through.

-Dave Adams-

I can see why Al Quaeda would want to kill Rove and Cheney because they are Al Queda's enemies but why would Al Quaeda want to kill Valerie Plame? Afterall, she and her husband Joe were OPPONENTS of Rove and Cheney and basically doing Al Quaeda's bidding here in the USA. So why would Al Quaeda want to murder their finest public relations agent (Plame)? That doesn't make sense Larry.

Politics are the motivation for the attacks. Religion is the enabler. Without the politics there would be no reason for an attack. Without religion there would be no source of martyrs.

Wow. That has to be the most contemptible post I've ever read. This is the sort of dishonest, mealy mouthed, snivelling, vomit licking, open running sore you'd expect from pus ridden, she-males trying out for NAMBLA membership. This sort of post goes so far below the gutter that it wallows in earthworm shit. I really can't imagine what sort of cringing imbecile would write something like that.

I have read translations, and not interpretations, of Bin Laden's speeches. Unfortunately, I only know a few words of Arabic. Even then, most of the transcripts I have read seem to lack what is extremely common practice: after the obligatory dedication to Allah and Muhammad, there is usually a setting of historical context.

Arabic is a language with an extremely long oral tradition, as many of its speakers are minimally literate, yet poetry and rhetoric are esteemed. I know a bit more Japanese than Arabic, enough to recognize that Japanese is extremely "high-context".

One of the reasons many American consumers, even though they may have researched a disease, have difficulty in being taken seriously, by other than unhurried physicians, is that the language doctors use to each other is extremely high-context. I do speak fluent Doctor, as a professional need, and I have learned what is not said is as important as what is said. This is extremely efficient for communication within an in-group; it's not an attempt to be unintelligible.

From what I know of his intended non-Western audience, I do not find bin Laden's speeches especially nonsensical.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]