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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Aug 25, 2009 - 10:44am PT
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Liberals and the CIA
A real 'Plame-gate,' minus the outrage.
By BRET STEPHENS
Article Comments (18) more in Opinion »Email Printer
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There is nothing more important than protecting the identities of CIA officers. So I need everybody to be clear: We will protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursue your missions.
—Barack Obama at CIA headquarters, April 2009.
Once upon a time, Valerie Plame Wilson was a hero to liberals everywhere, a covert CIA operative whose cover was blown by a vindictive Bush administration out to ruin its critics. Today, liberals within government and without are betraying covert CIA operatives as if it were the very essence of virtue. Consistency, principled or foolish, has never been a hobgoblin of the liberal mind.
Consider Attorney General Eric Holder's decision Monday to investigate and potentially prosecute about a dozen previously closed cases involving alleged detainee abuse by CIA officers or contractors. Whether those agents and contractors are innocent or guilty—or whether they were simply working within parameters they believed were necessary and permissible, and circumstances they deemed urgent, but which the Obama administration has retroactively decided were not—are matters that will be determined in due course. The 2004 CIA report on which Mr. Holder based his decision says that the most damaging allegations are "too ambiguous to reach any authoritative determination regarding the facts."
View Full Image
Associated Press
The cover of a special review released Monday, Aug. 24, 2009, of a newly declassified CIA document.
What's nearly certain, however, is that the names of the agents will soon become a part of the public record, either directly or through leaks that the liberal press will have no scruple about printing. Last year, for instance, the New York Times published the name of a CIA officer who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This was despite the protests of the officer and the CIA that to identify him would "put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency," as the Times put it in an editor's note.
So much, then, for President Obama's solemn promises to the CIA troops. Nor is Mr. Holder's decision the only political missile tracing a course toward Langley.
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is looking into allegations that military defense attorneys for top al Qaeda detainees had shown their clients photographs of CIA officers and contractors.
The pictures, some of which were "taken surreptitiously outside [the CIA officers'] homes," were gathered by an outfit called the John Adams Project, jointly sponsored by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The Project seeks to identify the interrogators to serve as witnesses if and when their clients are tried in federal court or by military commissions. "We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the Post.
He's got to be kidding. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, the law endlessly invoked in Mrs. Wilson's case, specifically proscribes anyone "in the course of a pattern of activities" from seeking to expose the identity of covert agents "to any individual not authorized to receive classified information." Equally plain is the penalty: "fined under Title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
The Act was written in response to the public disclosure of the names of U.S. covert agents, at least one of whom, Athens station chief Richard Welch, was assassinated in 1975 by Greek terrorists. It was approved overwhelmingly in Congress. In a 2006 letter to this newspaper, Sen. John Kerry approvingly quoted former president George H.W. Bush's "admonition that those who expose our agents are 'the most insidious of traitors.'"
Mr. Kerry was objecting to an editorial warning that CIA officers would soon have to take out personal insurance against the risk of lawsuits and congressional subpoenas. But those officers will have considerably more to fear if the detainees they once interrogated learn their names and are able to get the word out to their associates (as the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdul Rahman was able to get messages out of federal prison through his lawyer Lynn Stewart), assuming they don't get out themselves. In that case, more CIA agents will be gunned down in their homes—and the John Adamses of our day will have given demonstrably material support to terrorists.
Liberals have never liked the CIA, except when it suited their partisan purposes. That's fine: There's much not to like about the agency, and the U.S. might well be better off without its bungled operations and laughable intelligence estimates. But having shouted themselves hoarse over Mrs. Wilson, their enthusiasm for this new round of outing is a bit unseemly. Especially when lives are actually at stake. Especially when a liberal president has pledged to protect those lives.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 11:32am PT
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If you are going to cut and paste unoriginal thought, please provide a link (or perhaps only a link) and trim all the crap that you accidentally copied in addition to the main text.
It totally disrespects the forum and our time that you expect us to read your cut and paste when you don't have the time or respect to present somebody else's material in a clear manner
peace
karl
Edit; Fatty does it right in the post above..THanks
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apogee
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 11:55am PT
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bookworm, Karl is absolutely correct. Your cut & paste jobs above are in the style of suap- kind of like driving around in a soundproof car with a loudspeaker on top, screaming your views as you drive around your neighborhood. The upshot is that no-one listens to you, and everyone gets pissed off at you.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:11pm PT
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Seems like, from all of the posts, that the big difference on the two sides is that the Left posts their OWN opinions mostly, while the Right posts someone else's.
True to form...
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:18pm PT
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Fatty writes
"And here is why ObamaCare won't work, idiot patients. Straight from a docs mouth:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/25/harris.primary.care.doctor/index.html"
Sound more like Greedy doctor to me. BooHoo, whining about money while making 75$ every 10 minutes or so.
The first place money needs to go is subsidizing med and nursing school for americans to practice here.
One of the comments after Fatty Article
"My heart is bleeding. I suppose that the Dr then, after making all those greuling visitations, goes home to his two bedroom apartment in his 1990 Toyota Camry ? Im sure that Dr Vance is VERY well compensated for his troublesome day, and Im sure he makes more money than the upper 95% of this country. The AMA purposefullly limits the amount of Dr's on the market to keep wages high. Every year 1000's of qualified applicants are turned away from medical school just so peole like Dr Vance face less free market competition. We need MORE medical schools and MORE Drs. Cant anyone see that ? Perhaps then Dr Vance wont be bothered so much by those whinny patients who are FORCED to go see him because thay have no other choice !!"
There is a shortage of primary care docs here and in Canada. It's not a problem we can't fix or farm out to PAs and RNs.
Peace
Karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:20pm PT
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Makes me sick to see all these conservatives making the case that we need to leave poor and many middle income people without medical care so we can save money but they didn't seem to mind spending trillions to Help the Poor Iraqi's get democracy by bombing them
Shame
Karl
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:30pm PT
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Karl
I suppose its a value judgment of the perceived threat from
either the poor and many middle income American people or of
denying terrorists a base to stage attacks on us.
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apogee
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:32pm PT
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^^^^^FauxNews Spin Alert!^^^^^^^
Woop! Woop! Woop!
Spin Alert!
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:35pm PT
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The question is why do we have profit skimmers standing between you and your good health? Insurance companies are run by wall street and they want your hard earned money, period.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:42pm PT
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"The question is why do we have profit skimmers standing between you and your good health? Insurance companies are run by wall street and they want your hard earned money, period."
Imagine someone wanting to make money by providing a service. The horror!
John
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:42pm PT
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Agree we've created more, but their culture of respecting the strong has been galvanized by how f#%fing good the US is at killing them.
Right you are Wes. There is no threat from the poor so why spend any money on em? Because we Americans are a kind and generous!
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:53pm PT
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in war the morality that we operate under in or ordinary lives is
a liability.
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apogee
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 12:58pm PT
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Quick, Lois, post a comment from HWD so it looks like you are two separate people! Otherwise, it will be so obvious...
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:06pm PT
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I am thrilled Lois misses me so.
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apogee
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:26pm PT
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skipt, you would believe that sh*t. It's telling.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:41pm PT
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Because they are all too eager to latch on to whatever Obama bashing propaganda that happens to be spewing this week in the Great Echo Chamber. Remember: reality is meaningless. If it FEELS true then it IS true. Repeating it 1,000 times only codifies it into permanent validity. Oh and if someone questions it then just say it louder or change the subject.
BIRTH CERTIFICATE!
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
A survey where 68% preferred this Fuca over others
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:46pm PT
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Imagine someone wanting to make money by providing a service. The horror!
Doctors and nurses make money by providing a service; insurers make more money if they can deny health services.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:56pm PT
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Skipt you have no idea what you're talking about.
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apogee
climber
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Aug 25, 2009 - 01:59pm PT
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HDDJ, that's empirically true, but skipt repeats his falsehoods so many times to himself that his truth has been codified. And if he is challenged on his beliefs, he calls you a clown, or...
BIRTH CERTIFICATE!
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Aug 25, 2009 - 02:06pm PT
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Skipt-
So that makes you an expert on health insurance coverage?
Did you sponsor those people out of kindness or just so that you could brag on the internet about it? It's a little embarrassing that you would try to use what should and could be a selfless act of generosity and twist it into some self-serving ego boost to patch over your massive lack of knowledge about a topic which you are arguing and clearly know very little about.
There currently are no government mandates to provide coverage, so where is this magical "real competition" that you speak of? If it was so then it would currently exist, but it doesn't. The lack of gov't mandates to provide coverage is exactly WHY insurance companies can deny you for virtually any reason, or drop you even if they are covering you simply because you get an expensive illness.
Why don't you stick to speaking authoritatively on sponsoring people into the country to help them get health care, which is something you obviously DO know about. And maybe try not lording it over people. You know nothing about me, so trying to claim that what you have done is "better" than what I have done is literally just one more topic that you know nothing about.
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