ok so i'm watching larry king right now, and the husband of valerie plame is on

ok i understand that the libby guy had to go to court because he is charged with giving out her name and shes a CIA operative...but something i still wonder the entire time...


ok like the husband just said they released it to take attn off of the 16 words bush put in the 2003 state of the union, and to discredit him


OK WELL... thats my question basically is why would they want to discredit him?

how does discrediting him help their cause for the war

thanks, i hope this isnt too hard i just dont feel like the news has explained it good enough

11/5/2005 9:35:14 PM

Quote :

"drunknloaded: ok i understand that the libby guy had to go to court because he is charged with giving out her name and shes a CIA operative..."

[no], he's not charged with giving out her name at all. No one was, hence why teh L3ft is now all up in arms over "OMG covert CIA prisons!!1" (the importance of the CIA was only proportional to the likelihood Karl Rove could get indicted).

As for Wilson, though, the prevailing argument is that it was intended to be political payback and not necessarily to help the case for war.

[Edited on November 5, 2005 at 10:02 PM. Reason : ---]

11/5/2005 10:01:40 PM

It sends a message to people in the know to STFU if they plan to criticize the admin, it serves as vengeance for them somewhat embarrassing the admin.

If I want to put a conservative spin on the situation...

Rove and Libby simply didn't know she was undercover, and were just casually talking about a left-winger's wife who happened to be CIA (and they didn't know), and they happened to casually talk in a friendly manner to a sympathetic conservative news reporter, who ended up expressing her right to free press by writing a news article on the information she received.

11/5/2005 10:02:17 PM

Quote :

"the prevailing argument is that it was intended to be political payback and not necessarily to help the case for war. "

ok so how does her name getting out do that i still dont get it

11/5/2005 11:00:46 PM

well according to teh L3ft it completely devastated her life since she was an uber-l33t super-duper-covert not-really-a-soccer-mom-analyst CIA agent

11/5/2005 11:40:01 PM

you didnt answer my question

Quote :

"ok so how does her name getting out do that i still dont get it"

pretty much...why did republicans give out her name to discredit her husband?

i can understand why the left is doing what they are doing(the right gave out the name so only naturally will the democrats wanna get even)

11/6/2005 12:56:56 AM

Well, considering (according to the right), Plame isn't really an agent anymore (maybe that's what "they" want you to think), it could have just been a miscalculation. If I were working for the CIA, and it came out as prime-time news, i'd be pissed, and i'd be really pissed at the person who leaked me (which the CIA was, because they called for an investigation).

I don't see how that question is too relevant though, because just the principle of outing a CIA agent is pretty screwed up.

11/6/2005 1:03:32 AM

yeah i would be pissed if they leaked my name for NO REASON too

11/6/2005 1:27:28 AM

Joseph Wilson is far from being a "left winger". He served as an ambassador in Iraq during the Desert Shield, and was also appointed Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe by President Bush I.

You have to remember the the Niger "Yellow Cake" sale was the main pillar of the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. Without it, Condie Rice and Dick Cheney wouldn't have been able to go on all those talk shows saying, "We don't want the Smoking Gun to be a mushroom cloud". Wilson told the truth, which should have kicked out that main support for the invasion of Iraq.

Outing his wife was retaliation for Wilson's, "What I didn't find in Niger" op-ed piece.

11/6/2005 1:31:35 AM

^

Joseph Wilson didn't tell "the truth," because he was not in a position to find it. His "findings" were weighed against those of an actual intelligence agency -- Britain's -- with actual intelligence agents.

His wife was outed to raise the obvious question of why a retired diplomat with no intelligence experience was sent to investigate a matter of national importance in Niger.

It's funny how "cronyism" only matters when it's allegedly from Republicans. Of course the CIA must have considered Wilson, a man with no intelligence experience and an anti-Bush agenda, the a priori best choice for the WMD research job, over all their covert specialists in the world.

I'm sure his wife's status HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH IT.

11/6/2005 2:37:32 AM

606 characters of defense

and he was still right

must suck to have been fooled

11/6/2005 2:55:46 AM

Quote :

"His wife was outed to raise the obvious question of why a retired diplomat with no intelligence experience was sent to investigate a matter of national importance in Niger."

Quote :

"Falsehood: Wilson was not qualified to investigate the Niger claims In conjunction with the claim that nepotism led to the selection of Wilson for the trip to Niger, several conservative media figures have attempted to cast the former ambassador as unqualified to investigate the claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake form the African country. Toensing has repeatedly claimed that he lacked "any experience in WMD" and "any kind of senior experience in that country." National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne has described Wilson as "no expert in weapons of mass destruction." But Wilson possessed extensive diplomatic experience, had specialized in Africa during most of his career, and had taken a similar trip to Niger in 1999 to investigate possible purchases by Iran."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510220001

11/6/2005 3:06:01 AM

so basically, his wife was outed

so that we could all find out that he was sent to Niger

by the higher levels of the CI fucking A

not subordinates like his wife

...

sorry, but i'm not buying the crazy you're selling.

11/6/2005 3:08:24 AM

Quote :

"Joseph Wilson didn't tell "the truth," because he was not in a position to find it. His "findings" were weighed against those of an actual intelligence agency -- Britain's -- with actual intelligence agents."

Quote :

"Lawmaker says Italy warned U.S. that Iraq uranium documents were fake By Ariel David The Associated Press ROME – Italian secret services warned the United States months before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake, a lawmaker said today after a briefing by the nation's intelligence chief."

http://tinyurl.com/dzmxk

11/6/2005 3:12:53 AM

How TGD can brush this off as mere scandal mongering is beyond me.

11/6/2005 2:41:49 PM

^ Why, it's the truth.

11/6/2005 3:06:02 PM

[Edited on November 7, 2005 at 5:03 AM. Reason : ugh.]

11/7/2005 5:03:26 AM

[Edited on November 7, 2005 at 5:04 AM. Reason : blah]

11/7/2005 5:03:26 AM

Quote :

"Wilson possessed extensive diplomatic experience, had specialized in Africa during most of his career, and had taken a similar trip to Niger in 1999 to investigate possible purchases by Iran.""

Uh. This is a rebuttal to my point how?

In fact, this is just the height of dumb. You're going to tell me that "diplomatic experience" is the same thing as covert intelligence experience? WTF?

Hey, so what did Wilson actually DO in Niger? According to Wilson himself, he spent "eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people."

Boy, THAT sounds like a real covert intelligence operation! Top-secret! Ooooooh!

Quote :

"Italian secret services warned the United States months before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake"

Really? Did Joseph Wilson travel to Niger to talk with Italian secret service agents?

Didn't think so.

[Edited on November 7, 2005 at 5:04 AM. Reason : foo]

11/7/2005 5:03:26 AM

Quote :

"Boy, THAT sounds like a real covert intelligence operation! Top-secret! Ooooooh!"

Who said Wilson's mission was covert? No one.

but you, of course

"meeting with dozens of people" actually does seem like how you would perform an investigation. Would you only be satisfied with his investigation if he performed a HALO drop into a max security Nigerian government building, MP5 a'blazing?

11/7/2005 6:11:51 AM

allow mr. krugman to explain

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110405I.shtml

11/7/2005 7:05:16 AM

http://streaming.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/2005/smears_lies_videotape_medium.320.240.mov.html

11/17/2005 11:48:35 AM

the tea was shaken, not stirred

11/17/2005 1:49:18 PM

Quote :

"Plame's son: 'My mommy's a secret spy' HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -- The Washington couple at the heart of the CIA leak investigation had their cover blown by their small son as they tried to sneak away on vacation Thursday. "My daddy's famous, my mommy's a secret spy," declared the 5-year-old of his parents, former diplomat Joe Wilson and retired CIA operative Valerie Plame."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/29/cia.leak.son.reut/index.html

I want that little bastard charged with treason.

12/29/2005 11:42:30 PM

cant be, the constitution protects anyone under 7 from been charged and tried for any crime

12/29/2005 11:44:41 PM

that is a terrible article. It makes no sense at all..... am I missing something? That almost reads as if it were a joke.

They were in the airport trying to go somewhere without raising attention, when they "stopped for a brief interview inside the airport terminal"? Presumably, that's when the son said that? But if they were being interviewed I would have to assume the interviewer knew who they were. Not to mention, what provoked the kid to say that - did the interviewer look down and say "what do mommy and daddy do?"
Eitherway, i'd be pissed at Reuters for making my 5 year old son the topic of a story that's only supposed to cause controversay.

12/30/2005 10:08:05 AM