That Libby Treason Thing

Here is a comment I tried to post on The Wall Street Journal in response to an apologist for Libby and Bush's commuting of his sentence. The story was entitled Bush Approval Challenges Nixon, Carter Lows and appeared July 12, 2007.

One last time, I hope, in this august paper, soon to be a joke if Murdoch gets his pimping, pandering hands on it, Valerie Plame Wilson was a NOC, a spy with non-official cover, at the time she was betrayed but Armitage, Rove, Libby, Cheney, and possibly others.

We'll never know if there were others because of Libby's obstruction of justice.

What is a NOC? The following is quoted from the book Hubris by Michael Isikoff and David Corn: " NOC's were the most clandestine of the agency's frontline officers. They did not pretend to work for the U.S. government--and did not have the protection of diplomatic immunity should anything go awry. They had to be independent, resourceful, confident, --and careful. Valerie Wilson told people she worked for an energy firm. After returning from Europe and joining the CPD, she had MAINTAINED her NOC status." (p.11)

To help the uninformed and willfully ignorant on this NOC matter let me illustrate what a NOC is by using a character from fiction who is based on a real person. James Bond was a NOC!!!

Valerie Plame Wilson, who joined the CIA in 1985, worked overseas, "first as a case officer posing as State Department employee and then as a supersecret NOC," had been working at CPD for several years, successfully maintaining her NOC status all the while.

What is CPD? Well, that's the Counterproliferation Division of the Directorate of Operations in the CIA.

What were they tasked with? They were tasked with "mounting espionage operations aimed at obtaining intelligence on weapons of mass destruction programs around the globe. They also were plotting COVERT actions that might thwart these programs." Hmm, sounds pretty hush-hush and important to me, but people say I'm anal.

One section of the CPD was called the Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI). It focused on, as its name implies, Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction. It was headed by one Valerie Plame Wilson, who still maintained her NOC status.

This is the "desk job" the apologists for traitors refer to!

And it's a good thing she MAINTAINED her NOC status at that "desk job" because starting sometime in the summer of 2001 Dick Cheney, Libby, and others started flogging the CIA into mincemeat trying to get them to come up with information to support theirs and Bush's desire to unilaterally attack Iraq.

"By the spring of 2002, the JFTI, including Wilson, was under intense pressure to get more solid intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs", reports Isikoff and Corn.

JFTI was under so much pressure and so many cases piled up that "Valerie Wilson traveled overseas under assumed names to monitor walk-in operations and other activities."

Like I said, it's a good thing she MAINTAINED her NOC status and the agency continued to believe it was a usable and worthwhile asset.

It must have been a wee bit of a problem, though, packing that "desk" with her every time she left the JFTI and went out spying for her country. You'd think someone would have noticed something as odd and bulky as a "desk" in her luggage.

Once again, to clarify for the uniformed and willfully ignorant apologists for traitors, it's as if we were all in jolly old England and these same old traitors and apologists claimed in their defense "we didn't out the dear old boy, James Bond, when he was in downtown Moscow looking for Soviet nuclear secrets. We didn't do it when he was in communist China or playing "Our Man in Havana" (sorry Valerie, you're the last women I'd mistake for a man). No, no, we waited until the dear boy was in between dangerous missions, supervising other spies, then we outed the bastard." Apologies again Valerie.

There is lot of talk about a time in America, perhaps mythical, that is showcased in the painting of Norman Rockwell, and the Republicants carry on with much chest beating about being the protectors and defenders of that Rockwellian time.

Do you know what would have happened to someone who outed a spy such as Valerie Plame Wilson in those Rockwellian days? My guess--sudden death by lead poisoning while wearing a blindfold.

But not today, you see, not for the self-professed defenders of those Norman Rockwell days, not for Republicants. They are above the law!