Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Digging Past All The Right Wing Bullshit: What The Scooter Libby Case Was Really About

The American people are pissed. They are so pissed, that the White House had to turn off it's comment line.Another neocon crime okayed by the criminals in the Bush administration, who seem more concerned with covering their asses than obeying the law. If, like Jonah Goldberg claims, everyone on the cocktail circuit knew tha Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, it just means that the right wing nuts aren't very good at keeping secrets, or they aren't very careful with national security (or both. You decide). However, the prosecutor, the CIA and Plame's former colleagues all have stated that she was a covert operative. Who do you believe? A propagandist with the National Review, or people testifying under oath in a court of law?
But if the commutation (and possible pardon) hasn't got you steamed up, perhaps going back to the original story will.
In the propaganda run up to the Iraqi war, George Bush uttered the famous sixteen words:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA to investigate these claims earlier and reported them back to the CIA as false. When Bush gave his infamous speech, Wilson was mortified that what he reported was being twisted to use as the springboard to war. So he wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times:
Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

There you have it. Bush was using forged documents as it's cassus belli for war, and when it was pointed out to the American people by Joseph Wilson, someone from the Vice-president's branch of government leaked his wife's name to Robert Novak (as well as other journalists)in retaliation. Outing a covert CIA operative (especially during a time of war) is a crime, and as I have pointed out earlier, Plame was a covert operative. James Comey, a Bush appointee, had Patrick Fitzgerald investigate this, and in the course of the investigation, Lewis Libby gave contradictory testimony, in fact perjuring himself, which is another crime.
The Bush crime family, like any good crime family in America, looks out after those who won't roll over on them. So instead of having Libby do his time like Susan McDougal did for the Clintons, Bush commuted his sentence, which Bush (who has detainees in Guantanamo indefinitely without the luxury of a trial) thought was rather harsh.But the lie still lives on, even as more and more people die because of it.

5 comments:

Larry said...

Is the United States an Empire?



Definition of an Empire:

A nation-state that dominates other nation-states and exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

1) Exploits resources from the lands it dominates

2) Consumes large quantities of resources in amounts that are disproportionate to the size of its population relative to those of other nations

3) Maintain a large military that enforces its policies when more subtle measures fail

4) Spreads its language, literature, art, and various aspects of its culture throughout its sphere of influence

5) Taxes not just its own citizens, but also people in other countries

6) Imposes its own currency on the lands under its control

By the way, good post.

Snave said...

Excellent post, and great comment Larry. I'd say we meet all six of the criteria listed for being an empire. I might add a seventh, which is that empires are frequently ruled by assholes.

I think that the outing of Plame amounts to an act of treason. What are the punishments for treason in the U.S. today? I'm sure they would be unpalatable enough to the privileged wealthy few such as Dumbya, Dick, Karl, Armitage, etc. that they would be more than willing to have someone like Libby be their fall guy. Might as well reward him by keeping out of jail... what he did was "hard work", and he "did a heckuva job".

Bush swore an oath on his favorite book TWICE to uphold the Constitution. He has instead tried to find ways to get around it and weaken it. This just about makes him a TRAITOR.

How much more will Bush get away with before America gets pissed off enough to do something about it?

"Hmmm, lemme see now, this 'pushing the envelope' thing is fun. Huh, I got away with that last one and they didn't rise up, now let's see if I can get away with this next thing. If they still don't seem to care, I'll take it just a little bit further."

We have already given this fucker too many inches, and he has taken too many miles.

Larry said...

Snave:

If you missed Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" Tuesday night you need to catch it on one of the blogs.

It was priceless.

Undeniable Liberal said...

One more thing: the last act of a dying empire is to raid the treasury. I think we are seeing that as well.
Great post

Kathy said...

Good analysis. I didn't know the White House turned off the comment line. I kept getting busy signals, so I finally sent Bush and Cheney e-mails asking them to resign. (I took my cue from Olbermann.)