H&I Fires* 30, MAY 2007

Re: Plame & her covert status. I don't give a fat rat's ass who labelled her covert. As one of my favorite Texas phrases pronounces "You can put kittens in the oven.......doesn't make 'em biscuits!" Plame endangered her own covert status and so did her stupid, duplicitous, janitor husband. His stupid NYT Op-Ed caused all this fuss in the first place. I don't have a source to back it up and I could be wrong, but my understanding is that she had a parking spot at CIA with her flippin' name stencilled on it! Yeah....deep cover. The only part of that article that matters is this:

No one was ever charged with the leak of Plame's name itself, which would have been a crime only if someone knowingly gave our information about someone covered by a specific law protecting the identities of covert agents

. No crime. No conspiracy. Hit the bricks, Blondie!

Ward Churchill's reaction is a two edged sword: If the university fires him, they're stupid. If they keep him, they are even more stoopid. So, maybe he needs to join the intelligent and principled homeless under the bridge. Got it. And people wonder why I want to go back and get my degree. I would think more of the university for canning his sorry tuckus than his so called assessment of their collective intelligence.

I hadda good time driving an M47 in Germany... magneto checks under a bridge were always a hoot.

Um, Ry, did you read Sully's post? For one thing Auntie Andy whips out the guilt-by-association trick by citing Nazi methods of beatings and non-treatment of wounded or sick prisoners, then alluding to Gitmo. He doesn't actually come out and say BushitlerCo did those things, but the implication is clear. Next, is everything the Nazis did up for criticism? It sounds over here something like "if the Nazis (or Germans) did it, it must be evil!" Lefties tried the same tack back during the Cold War by observing that Soviet generals and American generals both studied the same "classics," as if that made both countries morally comparable. Apparently the meme now is: "if the stinkin' Nazis used sleep deprivation and water-boarding, it MUST be torture!!. Feh. I suppose that means locking people up in cells and asking them hard questions is torture as well, since the Nazis did those things. Is yelling now torture? Or messing with a subject's head? Actually, that last answer seems to be "yes," after they busted the woman interrogator who smeared red ink on the face of one abusive prisoner. ;( In fact Sully clearly conflates aggresive interrogation with verschärfte Vernehmung, despite the Norwegian law report which frequently cites regular beatings and non-treatment of injuries. I would truly love to hear all about the beatings, abuse of hurt prisoners, and genuine torture performed at Gitmo or other US facilities. Let me remind you that our armed forces regularly uses many of these techniques on our own men and women, especially SERE students. Do you claim that the DoD is torturing our own people?

“This is looking more and more like the Bush administration's domestic version of Iraq: a big risky gamble, based on wishful thinking and nonexistent administrative competence that will end in disaster?” -May16th Kausfiles from slate magazine. Dead on analogy for this debacle. The only way Bush can cement his legacy as the dumbest president in history is with Domestic Iraq. He wants to mess up our country like he has messed up our foreign policy. We have to secure the borders over there so we don't have to secure em over here. Where can I sign up to secure Iraq's borders?? http://www.slate.com/id/2166678/

Glad to be back where your blog isn't blocked! :)

Ry - You're missing my point or I'm missing yours. I did indeed follow the link and read the article. A document from the CIA declares Plame to have been covert at the time of the leak. My point is that the CIA can release a hundred documents declaring Plame to have been covert. I am saying that by her behavior, she was not. I can declare that my behavior at the MilBlog Conference was beyond reproach....the Armorer has pics proving it was not. And for pity's sake can we stop throwing Scooter under the bus? Joe Wilson leaked his wife's identity to David Corn and Richard Armitage leaked it to Robert Novak. Both Novak and Corn wrote articles. Libby spoke with Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, two reporters who didn't write articles. Miller said that her notes showed "Valerie Flame" not Plame and she could not testify under oath with certainty that Scooter was the first person to have even told her! Cooper said "he asked Libby whether Wilson's wife was involved in sending Wilson on a fact-finding trip to Niger. Cooper said Libby responded, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or "Yeah, I've heard something like that, too." If you want to talk about attention whores.....Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame come to mind. So Ry, if your point was that the CIA has memoes and documents "calling" Valerie Plame "covert", fine. They're not exactly news. My point is that she did not conduct herself wholly in a manner consistent with being "covert". Neighbors said they didn't know what she did for a living.......most of my neighbors don't know I work for a medical equipment company. Does it make me a "covert-medical-equipment-company-operative"?

Hey now Jon, there be a few of us DATS out here...! And we never *trained* to drive on ice but *did* have the occasional experience with it- mud and stone will throw a track but ice and snow will never harm us! But we did get frozen to the ground once outside Coburg, after staying overnight in a marshy place... TG for schnapps!

I don't know where to start first. (Flips coin) Casey. I find your use of the 'Invoke Nazis Lose the Deabte Rule' to be flawed. Mostly because of the bait and switch you employ. Yes, it does cite things like outright ignoring of injured parties, illegal since the First Geneva Convention, but also things like time and sensory dep constitute illegal actions. The ignoring of injured parties is irrelevant to the discussion(ergo the claim of bait and switch rhetorical device). At issue is the things we know have been done: stress positions, temperature manipulation to sap endurance, the chest slap, etc. The point is that they have a 60 year old legal precedent defining certain practices, things we've done, as illegal. Look at the Norweigan case. YOu may say that it isn't binding international law, since I'm not sure at this point if it was something akin to Nuremberg, but finding these actions to be akin to warcrimes, in a court of freakin' law(not just asserting it on DU or at DK), means something bro. They cite specifically the use of cold rooms, man, which HAS been documented as being done by US forces. If you believe in the rule of law, stare decesis, and all that it should make you at least want to rethink the whole thing and see if it's still kosher. You may also say that it's irrelevant because the people it's being done to are breakers of the GC rules on what constitutes a legal combatant. Maybe. That's true for some, but surely not all. Def'n not Taliban fighters who fought for a recognized gov't and operated as much as a normal army(remember, as little as a black armband is enough to satisfy the GC to make one a legal combatant). The additional protocols, which the US hasn't signed, definitely do extend said protections to every tom, dick and harry though(which is namby pamby). But some of those people that have been subjected to such are definitely legal combatants(two sides in a civil war, so long as they are responsible to some higher authority and wear distinguishing garb of some sort, are legal combatants). That presents a problem. So I hope you recognize right quick I'm not making the 'it doesn't work and ergo evil' argument. But saying, 'Shnikees, they ruled such things illegal 60 years ago. Crap. Now what do we do?' Casey, apparently you haven't hung around here for very long or paid much attention to me. One of my better friends and mentors is a twenty year intel officer. I've taken my lead largely from him on this issue. He's largely been in disagreement with the constant drum beat that 'energetic interrogation techniques' are ineffective. Personal experience he says. And I believe him. I've looked him in the eye as he said it, and what I saw was good enough for me. But to the legality? Dude. It's there apparently. I didn't want it to be. But being honest means I have to admit that it very well could be illegal based on what Sullivan brought up. That isn't namby pamby, that's honoring the Law. I would prefer that it wasn't a 60 year precident, but it is. Carpet bombing is effective too. It's also illegal in certain circumstance and is almost never used anymore---because of the problems of legality amoung others(pgm efficiency proll'y being the biggest). There's a reason why 'Bomber' Harris(sometimes called 'Butcher') and LeMay are right lucky that said rules didn't come into effect until after WW2---their strategy was deemed a war crime. So too here. Guess what, it could very well have been ruled illegal 60 years ago(namby pamby being a seperate argument). That doesn't change that I think it effective(and have annecdotal evidence of it so being). Just saying that GC and LoLW says we can't use means deemed illegal. I like being a white hat. I like living in a country that wears one. We don't simply go out and use the 5% sol'n (just carpet bomb the entire ME until there's only 5% of the pop left) even though it would be damn effective in cutting down on ME terrorism because it's something only blackhats would do. Because civilized people have deemed it evil. So too this. It may be namby pamby, but it's what white hats accept the rules to be. Yes, I have a farkin' clue about what SERE is. Matter of fact I have defended simulated rapes in SERE because it should be as realistic(ask AFSis, since she was about ready to decapitate me over it a few months ago.). But remember what the R stands for. Resistance. Resistance to torture and psychological attacks to get you to cough up info or amenable to being used as a tool by the enemy. We do that because we anticipate the enemy to do things ILLEGAL to break them(at least in part we have them do SERE for that, at least the torture parts). Not because such things have the good house keeping seal of approval of prisoner treatment. It's done to keep them, in part, from cracking to torturous practices by attenuation. (So the, 'do you think DoD torures our own people' canard simply doesn't work my good man.) If a court of law has defined something as little as the chest slap to be torture then we're stuck with that, who gives a farq if the Nazis did it, or the Sovs, or the Khmer Rouge, or anyone else. I kept that because that was somewhat the thrust of Sullivan(which I could give a rat's farkin' @55 about, honestly. But I also SPECIFICALLY said it was the legal issue that was the concern(maybe you missed that?) It's the legal precedent that has me worried about whether I've been in the right arguing in favor of energetic interrogation tactics and whether the country was in the right to employ them.). Hence the 'things I may have been wrong about'. We can either choose to continue to be whitehats, or not. Yes, at some point civilization may become overly touchy feely and then die. That's not what I'm talking about---though you seem to assert that it is the only issue here. Is it or is it not illegal is where I started and where I ended. I know it to be effective, but that's irrelevant to what I'm talking about. Being in resonance with the law, which, you know most times, makes one a whitehat. I choose to be a whitehat, not grey. ++++++++++++++++++ Oh my coppy @55. How you get from questioning whether my belief that Plame was never covert to Scooter Libby says LOADS about you and little about me. Where did I throw Libby under the bus? I point out that,hey, factually she was sometimes covert, which is a far sight different than what we've all been telling each other, and I'm throwing Libby under the bus? Oh please. Check your partisanship compensation circuits(if they're faulty I think BCR has spares hidden around here somewhere(I burn thru mine rather quickly). Warning, they're surplus. She keeps the good stuff for herself.). Does it matter whether she was NOC or not? Sure. If one cares about deciding positions on facts. That it turns out the situatin of covertness not being binary seems to matter. It was news to me. I've heard lots of people claim the CIA said this and that. This is the first time it's come out, in available to the public, written from that yes indeedy boys and girls she did at times operate covertly. YOu know, not simply being assertion by talking heads and partisans, but actual public record. I just love all the non-sequitors being employed. Oh, Libby wasn't charged under the statute for outing operatives(relevance to whether or not Plame was NOC? Zero. Also note, not being charged does not cause Plame to not be covert. That's a lot like the ice cream fallacy.). Can my company even declare me to be covert and have it matter in a court of law(What does the survey say, Richard Dawson? YYY(triple x would've tripped the PG-17 filters, and I don't feel like being electrocuted tonight.))? If it floats your boat to call yourself covert, go for it. Just don't expect it to mean much in a court of law since only gov't agencies can bestow that on you(common sense arguments only work when sense is employed, otherwise they're just badly reasoned arguments) And calls for empiricism when when is not employing empirical reasoning themselves seems well, hypocritical. We weren't there, personally observing, so all we have is the public record(or are some now claiming omniscience too?). I feel like Iniego Montoya(I don't think that means what you think it means, Vassiny). Basically you're saying that your opinion, not empirical evidence(a paper trail, for the first time, as far as I know anyway, showing her to be NOC), is all that matters. Sorry, but you ain't Sovreign. The world we live in doesn't work like that. Common sense arguement(you judge if it works): such a conspiracy of going back and creating all these fake documents and such to the effect that Plame was at least NOC operative would have a number in the dozens who would knw about it. Figuring that secrets are secure in inverse proportion to the number of those who know them, and that we haven't heard anyone coming forward and saying it's BS implies to me that it's a real low probability(How many knew of Nixon's Plumbers? 5? And how fast did that come out?). Vanishingly small probability. Like the chance that all my molecules could disassociate(possible, but insanely unlikely). So, either we trust the only empirical evidence we've got, public record(with a vanishingly small chance of there being a conspiracy), or we play on our un-empirical hunches and bad arguments. Your call. I'm sticking to empiricism. She was NOC. That's a fact. Stop there. Anything beyond that is you projecting into the discussion something I never brought. She was NOC. I'm satisfied at that point. I was wrong to say she was never ever covert, because apparently she was(unless you want to rely on bad 'common sense' arguments, hunches, and partisan polictical necessities of her being a fraud.). Why does it complicate things? What does the law say about NOC? Do you hang the guys who out foreign NOC agents? Why yes, I think you do. It complicates things because apparently covertness isn't binary(you're James Bond and therefor not talked about under pain of death, or you're a paper pusher who it doesn't matter if we talk about at all). Who cares if Wilson and Plame were terrible at keeping her ID secret. What does that have to do with the factualness of her being, at times, a covert operative? Abso-farkin'-lutely nothing. I'm not intrested in rationalisations for why it was okay to do this or that. My question on the matter was very binary: Was she or wasn't she? Turns out she was. Factually. Ooops. I was wrong to say otherwise. Many of you can keep on doing the rationalization game all you want, but that wasn't where I was at. I was aking a simpel was she or wasn't she. She was. End of the deal for me. So go ahead, rationalize away about why it was okay to rat out an agent, regardless of her covert status, which is odd, since didn't some of the participants say that ratting was soooooo wrong, as I'm not intersted in it, or Libby or the rest of the whole deal. She was, according to public record, a sometimes covert operative. End of story.

blah blah blah. ry; maggie: i think we all need to focus back in on what is really important about all this: driving tanks is FUN. try the bobsled run down from Wildflecken to the railhead when the cobblestones are all sleeted over with ice and steering is mostly theoretical.

I'll be honest. I haven't had time to wade into all this mess yet. But it seems to me that Plame, et al are still arguing that "sometimes she was covert" and "sometimes she wasn't". But you can't do that. You can't be "affirmatively taking steps to conceal the fact that you work for the CIA" only part of the time. You either conceal it ALL OF THE TIME OR NOT AT ALL. I would think this would be obvious. And for the purposes of the statute, Ry, Plame's employer needs to be the one doing this, and letting her drive right through the front gate of Langely really doesn't cut it. Also there is STILL the foreign posting requirement (have you read the statute?) and I'm not sure that TDY qualifies here. Again, Victoria Toensing is one of the people who wrote the statute and it is beyond amusing that every time she tried to open her mouth to answer a question before Congress Henry Waxman cut her off. Methinks he was afraid he'd hear something he didn't want introduced into the official record. Like, perhaps, the truth.

Cassie, do you really expect me to know the mind of Fitzgerald? I don't you know. Who knows what deal ARmitage cut, or if one was cut. Who knows. i sure don't claim to know. Maybe it is as many are claiming that intent couldn't be proven. I don't know. But you're arguing reverse causation. There's lots of other possibilities for why Armitage didn't get genked. Some that satisfy Occams' Razor too. It is also rather immaterial. Armitage is irrelevant to Plame's covertness. The covertness exists, is distinct from, anything that happens to Armitage. The two aren't symbiotes. They exist mutually exclusive of each other. I hate to say this, but you're arguing a real bad piece here. As to the statute, no I haven't read it in a while. I have seen where TOensig says that being NOC doesn't make anyone liable under the statute earlier today, which may be why nothing has happened to Armitage, so on that I was wrong last night. But for the most part it is becoming clear---she was NOC when necessary. I know people who've done similar(been open mil-per here in the States, wearing uniform to places like Denny's and Alpha Beta supermarkets and known to neighbors openly as USArmy intel officer, but gone in muffti/quasi-secrecy to some to be un-namable S. American country to do "God's Work".). It happens. It isn't binary ALL THE TIME. It is at times partial. That may be inconvenient right now, but being NOC(and thereby part times covert) is factual. Whether or not that matters legally is in the statute. ANd again, what has the effects of whether or not it is prosecutable have to do with Plame being NOC? Anything? (Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?) Are the two somehow inextricably linked? no. Absolutely not. That's tortured logic of the worst sort. That's akin to saying that a drug lord who can't be prosecuted can't be a drug lord because he isn't being prosecuted. What one is or isn't occurs regardless of whether it is or isn't prosecutable. THat's one of the points of the 'Does a tree falling make a sound if nobody is there' thought experiment is for. Does identity exist without observer. Is identity intrinsic or simply an observation. ID exists regardless of observation. So too does being NOC, and ergo covert(sometimes, sorta, when it was convienient), exist without the machinery of the legal establishment grinding. It simply is. Regardless of what happens legally that she was on NOC list is truthful, it is factual. Is it inconvenient for me? You betcha. Does it make me look stupid? You betcha, it makes me look real stupid to have put my neck out there and say she was never, ever covert. I did that. I look dumb for saying it. So what. Facts are facts. She was NOC according to CIA, who has final word on her status really. It makes dealing with the Moonbats harder since the battlelines of the argument are no longer nicely straight, we've got a slight bulge now. So what. We aren't moonbats and can argue, honestly and with our integrity intact, that LIbby got a raw deal for it and that the Wilson's were vile. The Wilsons being wastards also exists regardless of Plame being NOC. I'm surprised that a group such as this argues the opposite seemingly. --- Maggs, except for one or two(dozen) gramatical errors and some continuity issues that's totally readable. Sure, some of the parentheticals make it difficult to follow, but it's followable and logical. Has nothing to do with being up twenty hours at a go daily and facing a Gordian Knot type situation personally. I can stop doing the parentheticals if you like, but that wouldn't change the substance. --- John, dude, yeah that was a funny little ditty. But I also had my own reasons for saying what I said. Like this in another comments section at SWWBO's.

Re: the shooter vs space aliens "some folks..you just can't reach" Nonsense. This guy was mentally ill with a serious but treatable condition. Modern medical treatment could have helped this guy and probably prevented the tragedy. "Chlorine in the gene pool" may sometimes have a place, but this isn't one of them.