The Wiki Leaks

[heckofajobbrownie]

Let's not, Steve. You have your own facts: They're horrible people (for serving the country for years.) She wasn't covert. They were scheming to undermine the war effort. They got what was coming to them. They deserve to be in jail.

 

You can have them.

[Westside Steve]

Let's not, Steve. You have your own facts: They're horrible people (for serving the country for years.) She wasn't covert. They were scheming to undermine the war effort. They got what was coming to them. They deserve to be in jail.

 

You can have them.

So, uh, no answer huh?

Not even a guess?

Why aren't I surprised?

WSS

[calfoxwc]

Heck translation:

 

"dammit. First Cal kicks my ass, then Steve kicks my ass AGAIN, who's next? Everybody? I miss Shep..."

[heckofajobbrownie]

There's no point, Steve. I simply don't agree with your opinions, or your facts. And neither did Patrick Fitzgerald.

 

The only defensible position on the other side that I can see is to admit that yes, they should not have discussed a CIA operative's identity with reporters in order to push back politically on an op-ed published by her husband, but that, from what we can gather, her outing (thankfully) didn't cause anyone to be killed, or cause major disruptions to intelligence gathering, and that the political scandal that ensued was blown out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense.

 

That's about as far as I can go. All the stuff where you start digging in the Weekly Standard-inspired minutiae to figure out some retroactive, ad hoc reasons for why the outing of the guy's wife was justified is just rudderless partisan hackery.

 

The intelligence people I've talked to or heard from have all basically said the same thing: that the White House was very lucky that the damage they did was limited and relatively minor, because it's not like they checked what she had done and was doing before they went ahead and called the reporters. They thought the political fracas that ensued was overblown. They didn't like her being held up as a badass agent doing cloak and dagger stuff because she wasn't doing that at the time, but they really didn't like the carelessness with which the White House ruined her career, and her cover. They take that stuff very, very seriously, and for good reason. And it all fed into their overall distaste for an administration that looked at the intelligence community as a group of organizations that were supposed to supply the administration with the information it wanted in order to make whatever case they wanted to make, rather than what they actually do, which is try to provide the best information and analysis they can.

 

And what did the administration do when the intelligence community didn't give them the intelligence they wanted? They formed their own "intelligence research" group, staffed it with partisans with little or no intelligence gathering experience, and came to their own conclusions.

 

You do not f'ck with the identities of covert intelligence operatives for political reasons. If you think it's merited because someone in the intelligence community has their own agenda or played some politics of their own (gasp!) you really have to wake the f'ck up.

[calfoxwc]

And rogue employees of the CIA should not play politics with our President, the White House, and our national security.

 

Did I mention that Plame and Wilson donated $$$ to the Democrats?

 

Joe Wilson lied about Niger, and lied about Plame's involvement.

 

Plame lied about her involvement in dilligently working to get Joe Wilson, her husband,

 

who was NOT qualified, did NOT have the clearance, NOR the experience... sent to Niger on that mission.

 

Plame's political activity to undercut the President, and the White House, over Iraq,

 

got her on the hot seat. And it was a former CLINTON WHITE HOUSE operative

 

that outed her while in the Bush admin. Yes, that's true. That's Armitage.

 

In all that, Plame outed herself in her belligerent political hackery against Pres Bush, and Cheney, etc.

 

When Armitage finally admitted it was him, all "prosecution" disappeared.

 

Now, seriously, Heck, don't you think that that tells the tale right there?

[heckofajobbrownie]

No, of course not.

[DieHardBrownsFan]

There's no point, Steve. I simply don't agree with your opinions, or your facts. And neither did Patrick Fitzgerald.

 

The only defensible position on the other side that I can see is to admit that yes, they should not have discussed a CIA operative's identity with reporters in order to push back politically on an op-ed published by her husband, but that, from what we can gather, her outing (thankfully) didn't cause anyone to be killed, or cause major disruptions to intelligence gathering, and that the political scandal that ensued was blown out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense.

 

That's about as far as I can go. All the stuff where you start digging in the Weekly Standard-inspired minutiae to figure out some retroactive, ad hoc reasons for why the outing of the guy's wife was justified is just rudderless partisan hackery.

 

The intelligence people I've talked to or heard from have all basically said the same thing: that the White House was very lucky that the damage they did was limited and relatively minor, because it's not like they checked what she had done and was doing before they went ahead and called the reporters. They thought the political fracas that ensued was overblown. They didn't like her being held up as a badass agent doing cloak and dagger stuff because she wasn't doing that at the time, but they really didn't like the carelessness with which the White House ruined her career, and her cover. They take that stuff very, very seriously, and for good reason. And it all fed into their overall distaste for an administration that looked at the intelligence community as a group of organizations that were supposed to supply the administration with the information it wanted in order to make whatever case they wanted to make, rather than what they actually do, which is try to provide the best information and analysis they can.

 

And what did the administration do when the intelligence community didn't give them the intelligence they wanted? They formed their own "intelligence research" group, staffed it with partisans with little or no intelligence gathering experience, and came to their own conclusions.

 

You do not f'ck with the identities of covert intelligence operatives for political reasons. If you think it's merited because someone in the intelligence community has their own agenda or played some politics of their own (gasp!) you really have to wake the f'ck up.

 

 

You watch too many movies. And you're twisting the the subject of this thread to from Wiki Leaks to some pet peeve liberal agenda. Answer the question on Wiki instead of continually changing the subject to something dealing with Bush. Bush is gone, almost two years.

[heckofajobbrownie]

I did. Look at the top of the page.

 

[Westside Steve]

No, of course not.

 

 

So do you think those inconsistencies never happened or that there is a logical explaination for them?

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

What specifically are you referring to?

[VaporTrail]

Wikileaks- In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.

 

That's from Ron Paul

[DieHardBrownsFan]

How do you know what is truth? Just because it is an opinion of a diplomat? And you think its just fine that a private can just release this to the wiki leak and its the "truth", and is ok. I don't understand your logic. Illegal is illegal. It's not anything else. I hope they catch the wiki leak guy and send him to Gitmo. Lets see if he likes water boarding.

[VaporTrail]

It doesn't matter if it's the opinion of diplomats, their conversations with diplomats of other nations are shaping the world. I'm not saying the private shouldn't be punished. He broke the law and his oath, however morally gray his actions may have been.

 

Julian Assange and Wikileaks, on the other hand, are only the messengers. I don't fault them for allowing people to spill stuff like this. The world's becoming way too connected and transparent for shady international politics to be conducted the way it has been.