Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 40342
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2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

2005/10/30-11/1 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:40342 Activity:moderate
10/30   Remember when they told you Valerie Plame was not really undercover?
        http://csua.org/u/dvj
        \_ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Plame-Profile.html
           "She was 22 and very young coming into the CIA, but she was very
           mature, very professional." Other fellow trainees remember her as a
           head-turning blonde who did well wielding an AK-47.
           http://csua.org/u/dvl (Wash Post)
           In 2006, she will have 20 years with the agency. As such she
           qualifies for retirement but would not receive full benefits unless
           she stays with the agency until age 50. ...
           After she was named in a syndicated column by Robert Novak, Plame
           had no chance of working again in her chosen field ...
           "There are a variety of things she could have done at the agency.
           She could have become a station chief overseas and run espionage
           operations. It has destroyed her life on that front."
           operations. It has desroyed her life on that front."
           \_ typical Bush Administration's tactic.  Destroy those who oppose
              his political view.  Another fine example of 'conservative'
              virtue who cares more about 'personal behavior' eventhough his
              policies may be completely out of whack.
           \_ Naive question: what are CIA trainees doing wielding AKs?
              Shouldn't they be handling non-commie firearms?
              \_ dumbass
              \_ they should wear all Made-in-USA clothes and only knows
                 how to operate American-made equipment. Toyota? that is
                 equipment for Japanese Spys.
        \_ Valerie and Joe Wilson are partisan hacks who, at the behest of
           their party, tried to fabricate a scandal, national security
           be damned, in order to sway a presidential election.  They were
           caught and now both have been exposed as frauds and liars.
           Valeria Plame was outed by Aldrich Ames in 1997.  The notion that
           once comprimised she would subsequently continue as a covert agent
           is stupid.
           That said, Fitzgerald has spent 2 years and 70+ million dollars to
           find out who first released Plame's name.  Why is no one asking the
           answer to this question?  It is clear Libby didn't do it.
           Rove is not Novak's source.  So who was it?                 -jblack
           Rove is not Novak's source.  So who was it?
           \_ Aldrich Ames? To whom? To the public? When? Show, don't tell!
              Bad troll, no cookie.
           \_ What Libby did do was lie, over and over, under oath.  Coverups
              and perjury are illegal.  Conspiracy and all that.  But hey
              feel free to ignore that all.  Oh and as to the first paragraph
              you are totally insane yes.  Fabricating a scandal?  Did they
              LIE TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC about WMDs in Iraq and
              convince America to go to a WAR OF CHOICE under known false
              pretenses.  Did they burn a covert operative and her cover
              company when some of those lies came out?  Did they participate
              in a coverup to hide this fact?  If it was a made up scanal why
              did Bush come out and say anyone involved woudl be fired (a
              promise he rescinded later when it became clear that many people
              in his administration were involved, imagine that.  Why did
              Libby tell Miller that hey, that thing he signed saying she
              was released from confidentiality wasn't really a realease
              cause see it was made under duress (ha!  does that mean he was
              lieing to his president as well?  Or was Bush lieing to the
              public once again...)  Why the lies and coverup if it was
              just something madeup?  Why keep your head in the sand about
              an administration that lies over and over again?  That lied
              its way into a war and will keep on lieing as long as it can
              get away with it.
              \_ you really expect someone to read or reply to your
                 jibberish?  Based on your 1st sentence (as far as
                 I got) Libby has yet to be convicted, the US
                 does not have Napoleonic law.  The accusations in the indictment
                 relate ONLY to inconsistencies between the memory of
                 Libby and two reporters, Miller and Russert, while testifying
                 to FBI agents.
              \_ you really expect someone to read or reply to your jibberish?
                 Based on your 1st sentence (as far as I got) Libby has yet to
                 be convicted, the US does not have Napoleonic law.  The
                 accusations in the indictment relate ONLY to inconsistencies
                 between the memory of Libby and two reporters, Miller and
                 Russert, while testifying to FBI agents.
                 \- "Now listen. Did you ever hear of the Napoleonic
                    code, Stella?...Now just let me enlighten you on a
                    point or two...Now we got here in the state of
                    Louisiana what's known as the Napoleonic code. You
                    see, now according to that, what belongs to the wife
                    belongs to the husband also, and vice versa...It
                    looks to me like you've been swindled baby. And when
                    you get swindled under Napoleonic code, I get
                    swindled too and I don't like to get swindled..."
                    oh, BTW, the ACT CoaHTR is NOT BAD. yes, i know they
                    dont really have the NC.
              \_ You have been successfully trolled.  -John
              \_ "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH" --
                 http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary15.html
           \_ urlP
              \_ #f
           \_ There's a difference between exposing the truth, and being a
              traitor to your country.
        \_ But but but but the washington post said that she would tell all
           her neighbors every morning she was an undercover agent for the
           CIA ... I'm so confused!
2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

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csua.org/u/dvj -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20051031/us_nm/bush_leak_plame_dc_1
CIA and the secret life she crafted to conceal it were blown when her identity was revealed by a newspaper columnist, her husband, Joe Wilson said in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday. Wilson, a former career diplomat, said Plame, 42, was in shock when she s aw her name and that of her fictitious employer published in a syndicate d column by Robert Novak. "When he published her name-- it was very easy to unravel everything abou t her, her entire cover," Wilson said. Asked whether she realized then that her career as a CIA undercover agent was over, Wilson said: "Absolutely. Dick Cheney 's former chief of staff Lewis Libby was indicted on Friday on obstructio n of justice and perjury charges in the two-year-old investigation into who leaked Plame's identity. The CIA declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal process. Before the exposure, Plame's identity had been a well kept secret. Friend s and even relatives were kept in the dark about her work, Wilson told " 60 Minutes." Former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski, now a city attorney in Royal Oak, Mich igan, told "60 Minutes" it was "outrageous" that Plame had been exposed. So she's in a very, very uncomfortable spot," said Marcinkowski, who trained with Plame at the CIA. "Her career has been ended, Marcinkowski said when asked about the damage to Plame, who is the mother of 5-year-old twins. Wilson said his wife quickly recovered after the initial shock of having her identity compromised "and started making lists of what she had to do to ensure that her assets, her projects, her programs and her operation s were protected." He said there had been some "specific threats" and that he and his wife h ad discussed security with various agencies, but he could not say anythi ng further. The Washington Post reported that Plame, the daughter of an Air Force col onel and a teacher, was recruited by the CIA at the age of 22, shortly a fter graduating from Pennsylvania State University. She was trained at a CIA facility simply known as "The Farm" near William sburg, Virginia and was in the 1985-86 class of CIA officers. The newspaper quoted Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and acquaintance of Plame's who was in her officer training class as saying: "For all in tents and purposes out at the CIA, she's like a leper ... Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis 'Scooter' Libby wal ks out of the West Wing towards the Eisenhower Executive Office Building earlier Friday before resigning from his position at the White House in Washington, DC, October 28, 2005. Libby was indicted on Friday on obs truction of justice and perjury charges in the two-year-old investigatio n into who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Republication or r edistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the pri or written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any error s or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon .
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www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Plame-Profile.html
Help Plame Now Spends Her Days at CIA Desk Job By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: October 30, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Joe Wilson says it was mutual love at first sight when he and Valerie Plame spotted each other at a crowded diplomatic recepti on eight years ago. Breaking news and award winning multimedia New York Times newspaper articles Arts & Dining reviews Online Classifieds It's free and it only takes a minute!
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csua.org/u/dvl -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801172.html
More Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold By Richard Leiby Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 29, 2005; Lost in the din of the leak scandal that has consumed Washington is the v ery personal impact on the willowy blond CIA operative at its center. Pl ame, 42, wife of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, has become the mo st famous spy in the world, but her career has been derailed. It appears likely she will leave the CIA, some acquaintances say, but she hasn't p ublicly signaled her plans. CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, posed for Vanity Fair after her identity was revealed in a 2003 column. CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, posed for Van ity Fair after her identity was revealed in a 2003 column. If it is turn ed off, please enable JavaScript in your browser preferences. Key Players in the CIA Leak Case Analysis and short biographies of the main individuals involved in the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity to the press. Find stories, video, discussion transcripts and associated features relat ed to the investigation of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's ide ntity to the press. Career Highlights of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is at the center of an investigation into the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 Plame, the mother of 5-year-old twins, recently told a friend, Jane Honik man, that she intends to retire from the agency where she has worked for 20 years. "She really wants to be with her kids -- that's her plan, to be that mom," said Honikman, founder of a postpartum depression support network in which Plame has been active. Although Plame has been under "tremendous stress" as the subject of globa l publicity and political spin, Honikman added, "she has a good sense of humor still and a wonderful, charming ability to look on the bright sid e" Several friends say she was devastated by the disclosure of her name in July 2003, but she went on with her life: She and Wilson circulated socially, took weekend walks along the C&O Canal and went to church. At events where media were present, Plame unfailingly smiled and exchanged pleasantries. She has never granted an interview, effectively gagged by the CIA, whose guidelines require employees to clear media contacts and publications. She once posed for a Van ity Fair photograph in her husband's Jaguar, ala Grace Kelly, wearing su nglasses and a headscarf. For many critics of her media-savvy husband, t hat offered proof enough that she was out to capitalize on her notoriety -- further fodder in an affair that has become as highly politicized as any other White House scandal. Wilson, whose credibility and qualifications have come under withering Re publican fire ever since he went public about his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger and criticisms of the Iraq war, said yesterday in a statement: "Wh ile I may engage in public discourse, my wife and my family are private people. They did not choose to be brought into the public square, and th ey do not wish to be under the glare of cameras. This case is not about me or my family, no matter how others might try to make it so." Plame, the daughter of an Air Force colonel and an elementary school teac her, was recruited by the CIA at 22, shortly after graduation from Penns ylvania State University. She was in the 1985-86 class of CIA officers t rained at "The Farm" near Williamsburg, where the curriculum included le arning to drive under fire, blowing up cars and handling an AK-47. Her career postings are classified, but she was one of the elite clandest ine spies -- an officer with nonofficial cover who works overseas in bus iness or other jobs and has no diplomatic protection if detected or arre sted. As such she qualifies fo r retirement but would not receive full benefits unless she stays with t he agency until age 50. After she was named in a syndicated column by Robert Novak, Plame had no chance of working again in her chosen field, her friends say, and the st rain of remaining at the agency has taken its toll. "For all intents and purposes out at the CIA, she's like a leper . sh e's radioactive," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and acquainta nce of Plame's who was in her officer training class. "There are instanc es where some people at headquarters have shunned her. It's like someone whose child has died: What do you say to them? "There are a variety of things she could have done at the agency. She cou ld have become a station chief overseas and run espionage operations. What is she supposed to do now, w ear a button saying, " 'Hi, I work for the CIA'?"
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Clusterfuck Nation Archives October 31, 2005 The cry across the land grows increasingly shrill: "THEY LIED TO US! " For going on three years, the American public, especially on the pol itical left, has been complaining that the Iraq War was some kind of a s huck-and-jive. The Bush government pulled the wool over everybody's eyes . We were fooled by all those f airy tales about WMDs, Saddam and Osama, and African radioactive yellowc ake. Now, through the fog of the Valerie Plame affair and the indictment of Scooter Libby, the cry is reaching a crescendo: "THEY LIED TO US!" Being a Democrat myself, and therefore nominally in opposition to B ush-and-Cheneyism, one has to contend with all sorts of embarrassing non sense emanating from one's own side. In Sunday's New York Times op-ed se ction, for instance, Nicholas Kristoff wrote: "Mr Cheney, we need a sti ff dose of truth." I'm sorry to tell you this Nick (and the rest of my h omies), but what Jack Nicholson's character said in that court martial m ovie some years back still applies: you can't stand the truth. If the American public could stand the truth, we would stop calling it the Iraq War and rename it the War to Save Suburbia. Of all the thin gs that Bush and Cheney have said over the last six years, the one thing the Democratic opposition has not challenged is the statement that "the American way of life is not negotiable." The Democrats complain about the dark efforts by Bus h and Cheney to cook up a rationale for the war. The Democra ts desperately need something to oppose besides the truth. If they would shut up about WMDs for five minutes and just take a good look around, t hey'd know exactly why this war started. When the American people, Democrat and Republican both, decided to b uild a drive-in utopia based on incessant easy motoring and massive oil dependency, who lied to them? When tens of millions of Americans bought McHouses thirty-four miles away from their jobs in Boston, Atlanta, Minn eapolis, and Dallas, who lied to them? When American public officials ad opted the madness of single-use zoning and turned the terrain of this la nd into a tragic crapscape of strip malls on six-lane highways, who lied to them? When American school officials decided to consolidate all the kids in gigantic centralized facilities serviced by fleets of yellow bu ses that ran an average of 150,000 miles per year per school, who lied t o them? When Americans trashed their public transit and railroad system, who lied to them? When Americans let WalMart gut Main Street, who lied to them? When Bill and Hillary Clinton bought a suburban villa in farthe st reaches of northern Westchester County, New York, who lied to them? Here's the truth: the War to Sa ve Suburbia entailed an unavoidable strategic military enterprise. Savin g Suburbia required that the Middle East be pacified or at least stabili zed, because two-thirds of the world's remaining oil is there (and in ca se you haven't figured this out by now, Suburbia runs on oil, and the oi l has to be cheap or we couldn't afford to run it). The three main oil-p roducing countries in the Middle East, going from west-to-east are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. We had serious relationship problems with all o f them at various times, and they with each other, leading at frequent i ntervals to a lot of instability in that region, and consequently troubl e for us trying to run Suburbia on cheap oil (which they sold us in larg e quantities). After nineteen religious maniacs from the Middle East, mostly Arabs (though unaffiliated officially with any state in their actions) flew pl anes into our skyscrapers and a big government building, we had to kick someone's ass. We decided to start by kicking the ass of Afghanistan, wh ere one particular mischievous maniac, Mr bin Laden, had set up operati ons connected with 9/11. We never could find Mr bin L aden, Afghanistan wasn't really in the Middle East, and whatever else th ey were, the Afghans weren't Arabs. We had to find somebody else's ass t o kick to reinforce the idea that religious maniacs unaffiliated with an y particular state could not pull off lethal stunts like 9/11 without br inging substantial pain down on their own home places. Not bec ause he had anything to do with 9/11-- which we couldn't pin on any Musl im nation -- but because Saddam's Baathist regime was Arab, and the same general religious brand as the guys who did 9/11, Sunni Muslim, and bec ause Saddam had already proven to be a freelance mischievous maniac quit e in his own right over the years, worth getting rid of, and most of all (from a strategic point-of-view) because Iraq was the perfect place geo graphically to open a US police station in the Middle East. It was right between those two other troublemakers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and setti ng up an American military presence between them, it was hoped, would mo derate and influence their behavior, and discourage them from doing anyt hing to interfere with the indispensable supplies of oil that we despera tely required to run our beloved, non-negotiable Suburbia. It was even h oped, by a band of extreme idealists in the US Government, that in the p rocess of setting up a military presence in Iraq, we could convert this troubled, fractious nation into a peaceful, cohesive, beneficent democra cy, establishing a shining example, blah, blah. I apologize for taking two long paragraphs to tell you the true ori gins of the War to Save Suburbia, but it was, after all, only two paragr aphs, and the truth is sometimes not so simple. The American people have gotten exactly the war that they bargained for. The outstanding obvious question is not by what wicked and recondite means the War to Save Subu rbia got started, but how come once started, we did such a poor job of r esolving it, specifically why, after nearly three years, our vaunted tec hnological mastery couldn't get the electricity running more than a few hours a day in Baghdad, why we let squads of redneck moron enlisted pers onnel beat up on prisoners and videotape their own antics, and why we ca n't even get the oil equipment in good enough shape so the Iraqis can se ll us the oil we still need to run our non-negotiable way of life? So, as a card-carrying Democrat and as a Progressive who would like to see his country successfully adapt to the changing realities of the w orld, I propose we stop making ourselves ridiculous by whining about bei ng lied to, because we've only been lying to ourselves. We walked into t he War to Save Suburbia with, as the old saying goes, our eyes wide shut . October 24, 2005, Readers of my stuff and audience members at my college blabs have b een complaining lately that I wrote The Long Emergency as a wish-fulfill ment fantasy because I hate suburbia. So perhaps it's a good time for me to clarify my thoughts on suburbia. Even the Romans had suburb s, and the wish to inhabit the borderlands (to borrow John Stilgoe's ter m) of the largest cities is not a new thing. But in America the pattern evolved to an extent never before imagined. America's cities emerged han d-in-hand with industrialism, and by the mid-1800s the industrial city w as regarded as undesirable. As soon as the convulsion of the Civil War w as over, railroad suburbs were created for the very well-off, and system s for designing them were innovated by the likes of Calvert Vaux and Fre derick Law Olmsted, creators of New York's Central Park. There were very few of these special places, and they formed the basis of what would be known as the American Dream. 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