national security

Think Progress has all the details. With Dubai and this there is no doubt our White House does not give a damn about national security.

With all the talk recently about Cheney ordering Libby to disclose the
identity of Valerie Plame, the timing of this story is very relevant.

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House
officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and
its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who
worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations
as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking
distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to
and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed
heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that
Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and
carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to
monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

Article continues

here.

So in a time as delicate as this, the Vice President of the United States
felt it more important to try and protect their lies for a war with Iraq instead
of protecting an intelligence asset working on a real threat? How much more can
the White House do before it is considered treason?

This morning, Rep. Murtha was on Meet the Press and did an excellent job at
keeping the support for his resolution up. Russert questioned him on what the
other Republicans have said and he was good at steering clear of making it a
political showdown. Even when Russert asked Murtha about Bush lying the country
into war, Murtha responded in the most diplomatic of ways. He said he don't
believe Bush lied or any other President would lie in order to get the country
into war.

One of the most compelling items Murtha brought up, which was one I had not
heard yet, was that he consulted with other military leaders on his resolution.
It is not just the plan of a single Congressman, but a plan of former military
personnel. That makes the attacks against Murtha even more distasteful. Perhaps
that was Murtha's ace in the hole. Let the Republicans shoot themselves in the
foot attacking Murtha only to find out other Military leaders helped draft the
plan.

Murtha did say he predicts we will withdrawal over the next year and that
withdrawal will be very close to his plan. When Russert asked him if we would be
out by next years election Murtha replied "you hit the nail on the head".

That part really has me thinking even more now. If the Pentagon is planning
on us being out by November 2006, then it this duration of deployment has been
nothing more than a political stunt. The leaders of this country have been
playing with the lives of our soldiers and the readiness of our security in
order to gain votes at the poll. That in its self is the most disgusting act of
a democracy the world has ever known. Votes over lives. Votes over national
security. Votes over economic stability.

Judy Miller finally released her account today of her ordeal surrounding the
Valerie Plame leak (full New York Times article
here). I
have not read the entire article in full, but have read an interesting diagnosis
into it done by

Editor and Publisher magazine.

For the first time this clearly, Miller, in today's article, admits, "WMD--I
got it totally wrong," but then goes on to say that "all" of the other
journalists, and experts and analysts, also were wrong. "I did the best job
I could," she said.

The article reveals, also for the first time, that Keller took her off
Iraq and weapons issues after he became editor in July 2003. Nevertheless,
he admits, that "she kept drifting on her own back into the national
security realm," making one wonder who was in charge of her.

Full article

here

Reading that line there got me thinking about an article that appeared in
The Nation a couple
years ago. The article was comparing Judith Miller to Jayson Blaire, the
reporter who ultimately lost his job for plagiarism and not backing up his work.

On March 24, 2004, President George Bush took the spotlight as a comedian.
Before the National Correspondents dinner he boosted jokes while showing slides.
One joke he repeated throughout the evening involved weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. As he showed pictures of him looking under a desk he said "no weapons
of mass destruction there"

Eleven days after his stand-up show, Casey Sheehan was killed in Iraq. Now
his mother, Cindy, stands outside the Bush ranch in Crawford Texas waiting to
talk to him. Her question is simple - Why? She wants to know why we are fighting
a war in Iraq now that we know we were sent there on nothing but lies. She
demands to know why her son gave his life under the command of a President who
not only lied to Congress, but also lied to the entire war.

She has been there for five days now and the President refuses to speak to
her. She and many others continue their protest and the President continues
ignoring them. She is faced with being arrested tomorrow as a "threat to
national security" when the "threat" could be avoided by a talk from the
President.

While President Bush was making jokes though, others won't laughing. As
matter of fact, the month after Bush made his jokes, we suffered the second
deadliest month in Iraq with 140 deaths. As mater of fact in the 11 days after
Bush's joking we suffered the loss of 31 of our brave soldiers, including Casey
Sheehan.

Today I made a video clip of Bush's joking night in March of 2004 and how
serious the claims were in 2003. I am going to try to get it to Cindy for use on
her website. I hope you enjoy it. It may be slow as it is coming off my personal
server and I don't have the best of bandwidth, but it is only  1.5 megs.
The file is in windows media format. Please feel free to download and share it.

It has been four years since President Bush was at his ranch in Crawford and recieved a national security briefing that said "Osama determined to attack on United States soil". What have we learned in those four years? More importantly - Is he ignoring any other security briefings while driving around the ranch?

Post your comments and see what everyone thinks!

A Democratic Policy hearing just concluded on C-Span 3. The purpose of this
hearing was to find out exactly the ramifications of the ousting of Valerie
Plame and other details surrounding the scandal. It was to say the least -
troubling. Former CIA agents and others from the intelligence community
testified about how serious this issue is.

Larry Johnson, a former agent, explained how the ousting of a CIA agent is a
breach of our national security and causes irreparable harm to our clandestine
operations in the future. He also said that when he went through his initial
training with Valerie Plame that they did not even know the last names of each
other. This is how seriously our CIA takes the process of protecting its agents.

The strongest point made is that the President should act now on the fact
that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby did contribute to the ousting of Valerie Plame.
It is the President's responsibility under our law to ensure the protection of
secrets in the White House, and his failure to act is harming our national
security.

Rep. Louis Slaughter said that this case is far worse than even Watergate.
This has crossed over partisan lines and into the security of our nation.

The fact that the Republican's on Capital Hill refuse to investigate this
issue brings to life a more frightening point. The members on the right will go
to illegal extents to protect their reputation and the President. It is time to
put the partisanship aside and address an issue important to everyone of us and
that is our national security. If you find the time, I implore you to check this
hearing out on C-Span. I will post a link to the video as soon as it becomes available.

Ok we now know who the Supreme Court nominee is. That means
it is time to shift focus back to the big scandal. I am of course talking about
Karl Rove.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the State
Department memo which identified Plame seems to be one of the key pieces of
evidence in the grand jury inquiry. The memo was marked classified, and the line
where Plame was identified was even marked with “this information is not to be
shared”. That means Rove and Libby both should not have talked about it with
reporters.

I am kind of upset with certain people on the left with
regards to this issue. They think Judith Miller should not be in jail. I
disagree. If Judith Miller was protecting a “whistle blower” then I would be up
in arms over her jailing. The fact is, she is not protecting a “whistle blower”,
but instead she is in jail because she is protecting a possible criminal. Judge
Tatel, who is a federal appeals judge that ruled Cooper and Miller were to turn
over their notes, even said "were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to
national security or more vital to public debate.". He agrees that if this were
a whistle blower trying to uncover some wrong doing, then their sources could in
fact be protected.

If the defense had any merit at all, then they would not be
going on a witch hunt or smear campaign against Joe Wilson. They know that
people in the White House did something wrong. Instead of admitting fault, they
attack the victim. This is the same way as a rapist tries to defend himself by
saying “she asked for it”.