Valerie Plame, self-hating Jew? — does CIA lie that baldly? or is it that dumb?

For those who haven't seen the verschnizzle on Twitter, Valerie Plame, the Bush-era CIA agent outed by Scooter Libby and others in their relentless drive for war with Iraq, totally broke her foot off in it today when she claimed:

America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars https://t.co/oUH7b0QPMt

— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) September 21, 2017

First, this misses the fact that in the Iraq war that she and hubby Joe Wilson were fighting to stop, the charge was led by those famous goys George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, etc. It also ignores the wag-the-dog bombing, as well as the one-sided Serb-only bombing in the Balkans (vs. doing nothing to Croatia) of non-Jew Bill Clinton.

And, in todays environment, it ignores the non-Jewish heritage of Messrs. Trump, Bannon (in background), McMaster, et al vis-a-vis North Korea. This is like Counterpunch having a blogger recently claim that the Democrats were the "war party" of all major 20th-century wars.

There's several problems additional problems here, though, related to the provenance of the link — the Unz Review. If you're not familiar with the website, or Ron Unz, click the link. Maybe names like Pat Buchanan and the even more loathsome Steve Sailer will give you an idea of stuff you can find there.  Unfortunately, lefty economist Michael Hudson (who has been on my blogroll for some time) writes or rewrites there, as does outside-most-political-lines Paul Craig Roberts.

Also in that same vein, Consortium News, also on my blogroll and which has done a lot of good pushback on the "Putin Did It" narrative, does much of this work in conjunction with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, of which Giraldi, like Plame an ex-spook, is a member.

So, I did a four-tweet thread, starting with:

1st, y're not familiar w/Ron Unz? 2nd, name Pat Buchanan didn't set off alarm bells? 3rd, you're not familiar w/Steve Sailer, also there? 1/

— @RealDonaldTrump (@SocraticGadfly) September 21, 2017

Followed by:

That said, if you really are that ignorant of Ron Unz, and Steve Sailer, doesn't that say something about you as a CIA operative? 2/

— @RealDonaldTrump (@SocraticGadfly) September 21, 2017

Then taking the other fork of the dilemma with:

THAT said, Unz Review just accidentally slipped in your Twitter feed? Someone slipped you a cyber-mickey? Call this "Valerie Plame explains"

— @RealDonaldTrump (@SocraticGadfly) September 21, 2017

And finishing with:

Finally, given that Giraldi, like you, is an ex-spook is another reason for me to believe that you didn't stumble across this by accident.

— @RealDonaldTrump (@SocraticGadfly) September 21, 2017

More on that thread below.

Anyway, Plame now claims:

OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest.

— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) September 21, 2017

Um, sure!

See my second and third tweets in that thread. Or this Twitter thread. (David Klion rightly points out the problem of left-of-center people, like Patrick Cockburn working for left-of-center mags/websites, like Counterpunch, by noting that piece author Philip Giraldi has done stuff for the likes of The Nation before. Sadly, "Ask a Mexican" alt-weekly columnist Gustavo Arellano is also listed on Unz Review.)

So, if you are telling the truth, are you really that ignorant, and if so, what does that say about CIA operatives' political insights and knowledge in general?

Or, if you're not telling the truth, is this a(nother) non-shocking case of the CIA teaching operatives to lie that baldly?

Then comes this:

2) Just FYI, I am of Jewish decent. I am not in favor of war with Iran, or getting out of the Iran nuclear treaty. There are simply https://t.co/AR3Jsl1yml

— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) September 21, 2017

Well, I tackled that on Twitter, too:

So is Ron Unz and look at the crap, a fair amount of it by known racists, on his website.

— @RealDonaldTrump (@SocraticGadfly) September 21, 2017

What else is there to say at that point?

Erm, Sarah Kendzior! That's what to say!

The self-inflated foreign policy non-expert weighs in:

Valerie Plame is attempting to buy Twitter to influence content. Here is an example of an idea she admires.

Do not let Plame buy Twitter. pic.twitter.com/klgGfoHnfc

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 21, 2017

Finally, no, it's not a defense to claim that she really meant Zionists, and not "Jews."

As a Jew herself, she should know to make that distinction, so, at best, that's further illustration of sloppiness, while still not an excuse for what the hell she's doing at Ron Unz's site.

Obama asks SCOTUS not to rehear Plame suit

Is this Obama sellout week or what?

In the last seven days, we’ve had an official sellout on single-payer national healthcare, via Obama flunkie Max Baucus, followed by him getting punked on the savings issue by the American Hospital Association, followed in turn by White House staff confusion on just what Obama said about the AHA.

Obama then hires a polluters’ lawyer to oversee Superfund legal issues.

Next, he shows last year’s NAFTA-revision comments were just campaign hot air.

And now this.

Obama’s Justice Department claims Valerie Wilson has no legal standing to sue. Team Obama adopts another BushCo policy and makes it its own.

News briefs – Cheney costs country 3 mil and Clinton lies again

Hillary’s turn to lie

I guess Bill is taking a break. Hillary Clinton says Barack Obama doesn’t want the primary process to play out, just a couple of days after Obama clearly said the opposite.

Uncle Fester cost us $2.6 million

Along with Scooter Libby, David Addington, and assorted others from the Office of the Vice President’s rogues’ gallery, with the Preznit’s acquiescence. That is the cost of investigating the Valerie Plame leak. Too bad Scooter didn’t get a $2.6 million bill as part of his sentence.

Too bad the Preznit thought his original two and a half year sentence and $250K fine was excessive.

Update: This originally said “billion” instead of “million” in all occurrences. My error.

Of course, we know Uncle Fester has actually cost us about $3 trillion on the Iraq War, per Joseph Stigletz.

Brewster Jennings outed well before Plame outing

Neocons play hardball pre-Iraq; Wilson claims perhaps more murky

In a claim that will have the Jonah Goldbergs of the world calling for Scooter Libby’s pardon, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds claims that Brewster Jennings was exposed as a CIA front way back in 2001. It’s related to her claim we handed nuclear info to Turkey:

“One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them.

But she said: “He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.

“The target [Marc Grossman of the State Department] . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings.

“At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them.” If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame’s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.

Are the claims real?

It sure looks like it:

Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: “It’s pretty clear Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman’s company was affiliated to the CIA. I don’t know if that’s treason legally but many people would consider it to be.”

The FBI denied the existence of a specific case file about any outing of Brewster Jennings by the State Department official, in a response to a freedom of information request. However, last week The Sunday Times obtained a document, signed by an FBI official, showing that the file did exist in 2002.

Re Libby, err Cheney, and Plame, it’s still unclear how far knowledge of Brewster Jennings was disseminated before 2003. But, there’s loose threads, to say the least>

As Democratic Underground notes:

In Joe Wilson's book, The Politics of Truth, he says that he met his future wife, Valerie Plame, at an American Turkish Council (ATC) event at the residence of the Turkish ambassador in Washington DC in 1997. At the time, both the ATC and the Turkish diplomatic community were targets of FBI investigations.

And…

Wilson's consulting company, JC Wilson International Ventures, appears to have some Turkish clients, some of which may have come through his involvement at the ATC.

Given the interconnectedness of much of the Washington village, while I’m not offering a defense of Scooter Libby, it seems the whole Plame imbroglio has more gray areas than many Cheney-haters may want to admit.

On the other hand, the fact that Grossman is known as neocon complicates things yet further, and also shows how far they were, and still are, willing to go.

Meanwhile, the State Department still wants to be a nuclear proliferator, specifically to Turkey. Is this a CYA by neocons, who drool over Turkey precisely because of the nature and degree of its backdoor intelligence arrangements with Israel? Could well be. In that case, Grossman flagged Brewster Jennings in an effort to make it back off. And, it shows in yet another way how neocons had no regard for CIA professionals.

That, to me, is the backstory all along. The Turkey-Israel connections are well-known. I’m sure that’s why the Turks’ refusal to join the invasion in 2003 was a surprise of sorts, as well as a disappointment.

Libby GUILTY

On 4 of 5 counts.

Now, will Fitz move his investigation to Libby's boss, as some have rumored?

And, Fitz can’t prosecute Bush the Younger, and Speaker Pelosi already, like an appeaser, has taken impeachment off the table, so Cheney’s head will be the top prize.

It’s a whole new Plame field

So, as people have been expecting to happen, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson are suing Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, along with Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby and 10 unnamed persons.over the leaking of her name while she was still a CIA operative.

The lawsuit alleged "a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House" to "discredit, punish and seek revenge" against Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publicly disputing statements made by Bush justifying the war in Iraq.

No dollar amount, but both compensatory and punitive damages are being sought.

Will their suit have synergy with Libby’s trial? Or will they and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald get at cross purposes? As methodical as he’s been, I doubt he relishes this newcomer pair dealing themselves in at this point.

Second set of questions revolve around the pacing of this suit and how much happens before the November elections. And that’s the one that the GOP is surely sweating.

Rule No. 1 of civil suits is: There’s no Fifth Amendment.

Rule No. 2 is: Don’t ever forget about Rule No. 1.