Everyone knows that the Bush administration moved up the timing of its Supreme Court nomination to push chatter about Karl Rove off the front pages. No reason we should go along with the plan.
Part of the Republican strategy, of course, has been to shift the focus away from Rove and onto Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. (The mind absolutely boggles at what these exact same people would be saying if a Democratic political operative had blown the cover of a CIA agent — flogging wouldn’t be good enough for them.) They want to give the impression that Plame wasn’t really undercover, so it was no big deal to give a few reporters her identity in order to settle a political score.
Actual CIA agents disagree, and they’ve written an open letter to Congress to make their stance clear.
We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.
The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. […] These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who “work at a desk” in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.
Via Dynamics of Cats and AMERICAblog.
But seriously, what happened to the world that we are angry that someone outed a CIA agent? We should be outing them ourselves! Yeah, its hypocritical, but what else is new?
I’m certainly not in favor of outing CIA agents, especially not for brazenly political reasons. The CIA does all sorts of nasty things, but the way to stop them is to reform the agency from the top down, not to put individual operatives in danger.
“Everyone knows…” that the cosmological constant must be 120 orders of magnitude smaller than dimensional analysis suggests. Reading your article, Sean, the long sought explanation finally hit me. Just claim “everyone knows” it — no further questions appropriate.
How silly can you get? Oh, I forgot, it’s not silly, but “it’s true, we tend to be a little bit to the left of the median American.” Ha ha ha! What a blatant understatement! You are such a radical ideologue. I remember well those embarassing postings, such as the anti-Feynman rant, on your old blog.
I think the problem is that it is very hard for many Americans to understand why Plame’s identity was secret when she wasn’t working covert in the sense of the term most people understand it. Rather she was covert in a fashion most CIA employees were. It may have hurt her career, and in that sense was unethical. But it’s hard to understand *how* it was a threat to national security. Perhaps if the signing CIA agents could explain that better more people would agree with them?
Right now it really comes off more as partisan bickering with neither side looking particularly good.
I do agree however that if Rove broke law he ought be immediately fired. Even if he didn’t break law but was the prime leaker then I think he ought go. But right now it sure sounds like he was just repeating what reporters were telling him. i.e. a public story. While I’m sympathetic to CIA claims that people shouldn’t say one way or an other on secret issues, I’m not sure that explanation works for a situation that seemed intrinsically problematic and questionable and was so explicitly political.
I’m much more sympathetic to criticisms about Rove’s “scorched earth policy.” However the fact is that both sides do this. Indeed one might say the current situation is an example of a Democratic scorched earth policy. It’s hard to take either side seriously when there is so much hypocrisy involved and so little of apparent substance. (At least that I’ve seen discussed)
David – it is very likely that you will be asked to provide references for a student you have taught, to go work on classified information with a US intelligence agency. Are you seriously saying that having such information in confidence you would “out” them?
US (and other) intelligence agencies have done some nasty, unethical and illegal things over the decades, but most of their employees are working on important issues by direction of the elected government.
As to why the outing of Plame is a big deal – she made contacts under cover, apparently to track illegal trafficking and networking on WMDs. When she was outed, any contact she made in other countries becomes suspect – this may break operational networks or confidential sources she left behind, conceivably leading to their imprisonment or death. Further, her cover employer was also revealed by Novak, and anyone who traveled outside the USA and listed it as an employer or contact is now also known to be an undercover agent.
There is some national interest in having sources able and willing to reveal any illicit trade or attempted trade in WMDs. That is not a party political issue. It is not even a US national issue.
One thing we have learned at this ‘blog is that scientists have no sense of irony.
Hogg: neither does Alanis Morisette….so your point is what exactly?
Well, all we know is that Alanis does not know what irony is, we can’t tell from that whether she has a sense of humour.
Real question is whether we can tell who is a scientist.
I did out a scientist on the Net once, he’s still annoyed at me over that…
Hold on guys. In David’s defense (not that he appears to need it), it is something of a surprise to be in a situation when liberals are shouting loudly about the need to protect the CIA.
Only if you if there is an implicit assumption that the CIA is politically aligned.
I find it actually mildly reassuring to learn that the CIA, or parts thereof, is not a knee-jerk Republican Party or conservative operation.
Why should liberals not defend intelligence agencies when they are under partisan conservative attack? (Well, except it is not conservative, dammit, they’re radicals, just not progressive radicals).
Anyway, you don’t mess about with PSU alums and get away with it…
Some scientists. I take no responsibility for my non-irony getting colleagues 😉
It is nothing to do with assumptions and I’m not suggesting that there is any reason that liberals shouldn’t defend intelligence agencies. I’ll do it myself! Rather, I’m just observing that one frequently, most often among one’s colleagues who were young in the 60’s, hears bad-mouthing of the CIA. This is just what I (and perhaps David) have observed. That’s why I find it ironic. It is not a statement of how I think things should be or of any assumptions I’m making.
Some scientists, some of the time?
Does this reinforce or void my theorist credentials?
Anyway, I should apologise, we can be pretty sure Alanis has a sense of humour, we still don’t know for sure if she has a sense of irony.
I mean what could be more ironic, a song about irony that gets it all wrong?