The Serpent's Wisdom

For a couple of years now I've read hints and rumors about an ongoing full-scale war between the neoconservatives and the FBI-CIA. The flap over the mass media outing of undercover spook Valerie Plame by members of the Bush Administration is but one tendril of evidence that points to such a war. Allegations of Dick Cheney strongarming people in the CIA to produce intelligence favorable to the Administration's goal of "regime change in Iraq" are another tendril.

Yet another tendril was filed in federal court on August 4. You can read a copy of a federal grand jury's indictment of Larry Franklin, Steve Rosen, and Keith Weissman on charges of espionage here.

Justin Raimondo posted an interesting analysis of that indictment here.

As I wrote in The American Conservative in June:
"Like a dorsal fin poking just above the water, the Franklin spy trial promises us a glimpse of a creature much larger than appears at first sight."
However, not even I imagined the monstrous scale of this submerged giant: the earliest I could trace its movements was back to just before 9/11, based on the reporting of UPI's Richard Sale. But 1999? Who woulda thought? And it isn't just the timeline that's disturbing: it seems that a number of apparently senior U.S. government officials are about to be dragged into this imbroglio of trouble and treason.

This was all about factional warfare going on inside the administration over U.S. policy toward Iran, and "how the deliberations would proceed" was and still is of vital interest to the Israelis. Pushing the Americans toward a confrontation with Tehran, Israel and its American amen corner could care less how many laws they have to break in order to make sure they prevail. Trading in classified information, and leaking to "reporters for a national news organization" and even "a senior fellow at a Washington, D.C., thinktank," was all part of the game, and no doubt still is: what none of them realized, however, was that the feds were listening in on the other end.

... As the issue of Iran's alleged push to procure nuclear weapons takes center stage, AIPAC's efforts to sway U.S. policy – including stealing and leaking U.S. secrets in the service of their pro-Israel agenda – could not have been exposed at a more opportune time. Franklin's trial is scheduled for Sept. 6, although this new indictment could delay matters, but one thing is clear: When these people are finally brought to trial, it is the War Party that will be put in the dock. All those mysterious government officials, not identified by name in the indictment, will be called to testify under oath: the same goes for reporters who laundered Franklin's ill-gotten secrets.

The Supreme Court that installed President Bush in 2000 may have just brought him down.

Some background on this. Some time ago, someone in the White House leaked the name of a secret agent to several reporters, one of whom printed the agent's name -- Valerie Plame -- in a newspaper essay. This was an act of vengeance against Plame's husband, a spook and former ambassador who wrote an op-ed piece critical of the administration's Iraq policy. But it was also an all-out assault on the CIA; a large number of field agents were endangered by the revelation.

The leak was illegal, and a grand jury was convened to investigate. The reporters refused to say who the source was though, arguing that the confidentiality of anonymous sources is crucial to the way the press operates. The grand jury held two reporters, one from Time Magazine and one from the New York Times, in contempt of court. The two reporters, having recently exhausted their legal options with the Supreme Court's ruling, were prepared to go to jail, until Time Magazine announced that it was going to give up the information the grand jury wants.

The source of the leak is Karl Rove, the Bush campaign mastermind.

Time Magazine has turned over documents to the Grand Jury which is investigating the Valerie Plame leak. On the McLaughlin Group Friday night, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, said that the leak came from Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

from Rove Source of Plame Leak?

So what was it that Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, said that made the White House so upset in the first place? Wilson contended that the White House was twisting and fixing evidence to make it seem like they had a strong case for going to war with Iraq -- which is precisely what is shown happening in the Downing Street memos. So the grand jury, and perhaps more people in Congress, will hopefully become curious enough about why this charge would so upset the White House, that this matter of the fraudulent "case for war" will finally receive the scrutiny it deserves.

Bush hired a lawyer for his defense in the Plame leak case last year, before the election.

The director of the CIA says he has an "excellent idea" where Osama bin Laden is hiding, but that the United States' respect for sovereign nations makes it more difficult to capture the al-Qaida chief.

from Goss Claims He Has Idea Where Bin Laden Is

No, wait, don't tell me, let me guess. Iran?

from Bush Administration Accused of Manufacturing the News (thank you, contentlove)

The Bush Administration is being investigated for producing "ready made" television news packages in which actors were paid to pose as journalists, it emerged today. "TV news releases" were sent to local stations to be run as part of main news programmes.

... The "news" packages praised a new law, signed by the president in December, which the White House has said will make it easier for elderly American’s to obtain prescribed medicines. In some of the features, there are pictures of Mr Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd as he signed the "Medicare" law. The packages were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, but news viewers would have no way of knowing they were watching a Government-produced story, rather than an independent news report.

They have been screened in several states, including Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Two of the videos end with the voice of a woman who says: "In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting." The production company, Home Front Communications, said "Karen Ryan" was hired to read a script prepared by the Government.

Scripts were pre-written for news anchors. In one script the news reader is prompted to say: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details." "Karen Ryan" then explains the benefits of the new law.

... The made-for-TV-news packages are now being investigated by the General Accounting Office -- an arm of Congress. Under law federal money cannot be used for "publicity or propaganda purposes", unless authorised by Congress.

from Why Don't We Have Answers to These 9/11 Questions?

( 20 Questions about Sept. 11 that have yet to be answered. )

I know I've been posting a lot yesterday and today, but there's a lot of important stuff going on. Today's very important post, that I urge all of you to read, was this by vidicon:

What the hell happened to Valerie Plame?

US Ambassador Joseph Wilson comes forward as the guy the Bush Administration hired to look into the rumors of Saddam Hussein attempting to purchase uranium oxide from Nigeria. Wilson wrote the report saying the yellowcake deal was a crock and that people in the Bush Administration certainly read it before Bush made his public statements about Hussein's potential nukuler threat.

In return, the White House leaked that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent -- thereby threatening her life, the lives of her family and the lives of anyone known to be associated with her. This deliberate leak -- perpetrated by White House advisor Karl Rove, according to evidence presented by Wilson to a Washington symposium on August 29 -- has lead to the "liquidation of more than 70 CIA assets". That means blood, and plenty of it. And the destruction of twenty-six years of effort to thin down the amount of lies and bullshit our decision-makers have to sort through.

... This strangely mirrors Dr. Kelly's suicide in Britain. Kelly, as you might recall, was the man that Tony Blair's administration outed as the source for saying that the yellowcake deal was bullshit and Blair knew it.

... Government leaks destroy the lives of two agents, both of whom are whistle-blowers on the same damned project.