White House Outs CIA Station Chief

[Jhhnn]

This is the first post in this thread, werepossum-

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/white-house-cia-official-afghanistan-107088.html

Here's an interesting development that is sure to outrage our friends on the left. My thought is that it was an accident...just as Plame was.

This is werepossum trying to make it something it's not, reduce discussion to personal attack-

lol Making a "flap" about Team Obama outing the CIA station chief in Afghanistan now is "just another attempt to segue into revisionist history", whereas bringing up Team Bush "outing" an open CIA employee a decade ago is, um, totally relevant and important. Somehow.

Evidently bliss is not only ignorance, it's being literally too stupid to appreciate one's own unintended irony.


lol This is your brain on drugs.

Well - your brain stem on drugs.

DSF made the segue to revisionist history in the OP, claimed that publicly outing Plame was an accident. He put the two things together, not me.

Must be his brain on drugs, huh?

 

[DominionSeraph]

Outing a CIA station chief? Obama must be trying to divert from when he illegally forced BP into funding a $20 billion trust fund to redistribute wealth to freeloaders to whom BP had already generously donated free crude. The LMSM went on about "restitution," but WE know the truth! Call your Republican congressmen now and DEMAND that they start the investigation!

Obama lied and BP cried.

 

[kage69]

Given what I've heard this story appears to be a pretty embarrassing screw up by someone in a hurry. Amateur hour for sure. But I think it really says something that all the former bushies seem to be spending more time trying to liken it to Plamegate than running with the standard frothy outrage regarding all things Obama.

Turns out this news is useful tool - want to play spot the shameless partisan hack (or Fox employee)? Just look for anyone who honestly believes this station chief being outed as the same thing as Cheney and Rove playing dirty because certain underlings weren't following the game plan to help manufacture the narrative that would get us into Iraq.

I will agree that the careers of 2 useful American professionals, in addition to untold numbers of assets, contacts and fronts, have been basically thrown in the trash over the actions of some careless, self-absorbed politicians. I guess it remains to be seen if this cover being blown will have a trickle down effect to other intelligence efforts like there was with Plame/Brewster Jennings regarding Iran and the Pakistani ISI.

 

[Knowing]

Can you provide me with a single, solitary example where this has happened in the entirety of US history?

Wow, are we skipping right to you trying to shift the burden of proof? We're only a few posts in. My evidence for declassification procedures is in EO13526, like I said in my first post. Of particular interest might be: any sentence containing "unauthorized disclosure" and how things don't become declassified just because someone spilled them.

The president has the constitutional authority to control all classified material as established in Navy v. Egan.

Yet you don't link to the decision or quote it.

 

[Thebobo]

Bet someone feels like shit

 

[Fern]

I don't think it's analogous to Plame. The CIA station Chief was actually covert.

I don't think there's anything behind it but the carelessness typical of this admin. From the gift of DVD's to the queen of England that don't work (EU versus USA standard) to sending guns into Mexico with, uh oh, no way to trace them and forgetting to notify the Mexican authorities to seemingly not knowing anything about his administration until he reads about it in the newspaper. SSDD

Fern

 

[Thebobo]

I don't think it's analogous to Plame. The CIA station Chief was actually covert.
...

Fern

And you are saying Plame was not covert?

 

[Pens1566]

Wow, are we skipping right to you trying to shift the burden of proof? We're only a few posts in. My evidence for declassification procedures is in EO13526, like I said in my first post. Of particular interest might be: any sentence containing "unauthorized disclosure" and how things don't become declassified just because someone spilled them.



Yet you don't link to the decision or quote it.

Key word there is "unauthorized" and since the President is the original classification authority, he can declassify it. Hence, authorized.

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't think it's analogous to Plame. The CIA station Chief was actually covert.

I don't think there's anything behind it but the carelessness typical of this admin. From the gift of DVD's to the queen of England that don't work (EU versus USA standard) to sending guns into Mexico with, uh oh, no way to trace them and forgetting to notify the Mexican authorities to seemingly not knowing anything about his administration until he reads about it in the newspaper. SSDD

Fern

When all else fails, attempt to conflate issues & slime simultaneously.

The whole reference to F&F is scurrilous propaganda of the worst sort.

You already knew that, of course, but it's important to hit all the pander points.

 

[Jhhnn]

And you are saying Plame was not covert?

He's saying his shit is weak & he knows it.

In no way can the public outing of Plame be construed as "accidental".

OTOH, Occam's razor tells us that the outing of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan was very likely just that, accidental.

 

[werepossum]

This is the first post in this thread, werepossum-

This is werepossum trying to make it something it's not, reduce discussion to personal attack-

DSF made the segue to revisionist history in the OP, claimed that publicly outing Plame was an accident. He put the two things together, not me.

Must be his brain on drugs, huh?

DSF made a very valid point. You spewed pointless foamy rage. Big difference.

Given what I've heard this story appears to be a pretty embarrassing screw up by someone in a hurry. Amateur hour for sure. But I think it really says something that all the former bushies seem to be spending more time trying to liken it to Plamegate than running with the standard frothy outrage regarding all things Obama.

Turns out this news is useful tool - want to play spot the shameless partisan hack (or Fox employee)? Just look for anyone who honestly believes this station chief being outed as the same thing as Cheney and Rove playing dirty because certain underlings weren't following the game plan to help manufacture the narrative that would get us into Iraq.

I will agree that the careers of 2 useful American professionals, in addition to untold numbers of assets, contacts and fronts, have been basically thrown in the trash over the actions of some careless, self-absorbed politicians. I guess it remains to be seen if this cover being blown will have a trickle down effect to other intelligence efforts like there was with Plame/Brewster Jennings regarding Iran and the Pakistani ISI.

We honestly believe that outing the station chief was an accident - just as was Plame's "outing" by Armitage. I think there may be more similarity than is visible at first blush. Plame was openly working in CIA headquarters and many, many people knew it - not exactly the way to remain a covert asset. This guy was meeting with the freakin' President in Afghanistan - how covert can he possibly be? Granted, probably comparatively few people in Afghanistan knew he was the CIA station chief, but if he's meeting with the President of the United States in a war zone, clearly anyone with whom he later meets is going to be investigated, period, by anyone attempting to identify our field agents. To be covert, one needs no apparent contacts with the US government.

 

[Jhhnn]

lol Making a "flap" about Team Obama outing the CIA station chief in Afghanistan now is "just another attempt to segue into revisionist history", whereas bringing up Team Bush "outing" an open CIA employee a decade ago is, um, totally relevant and important. Somehow.

Evidently bliss is not only ignorance, it's being literally too stupid to appreciate one's own unintended irony.


lol This is your brain on drugs.

Well - your brain stem on drugs.

DSF made a very valid point. You spewed pointless foamy rage. Big difference.


We honestly believe that outing the station chief was an accident - just as was Plame's "outing" by Armitage. I think there may be more similarity than is visible at first blush. Plame was openly working in CIA headquarters and many, many people knew it - not exactly the way to remain a covert asset. This guy was meeting with the freakin' President in Afghanistan - how covert can he possibly be? Granted, probably comparatively few people in Afghanistan knew he was the CIA station chief, but if he's meeting with the President of the United States in a war zone, clearly anyone with whom he later meets is going to be investigated, period, by anyone attempting to identify our field agents. To be covert, one needs no apparent contacts with the US government.

First ridicule me for what DSF said, then claim his point was valid, segue into an invalid definition of "covert" & of "outing" as well.

Obviously, you parrot the ends of revisionist history the whole time, following the lead of DSF & an orchestrated campaign by right wing media-

http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/05/27/right-wing-media-draw-false-equivalence-to-down/199477

 

[fskimospy]

Wow, are we skipping right to you trying to shift the burden of proof? We're only a few posts in. My evidence for declassification procedures is in EO13526, like I said in my first post. Of particular interest might be: any sentence containing "unauthorized disclosure" and how things don't become declassified just because someone spilled them.

Interesting that you think that me asking you to back up your bullshit statement is shifting the burden of proof. My point is self evident: an individual is not bound by orders whose SOLE source of authority is that same individual. This is basic logic. The president is the source of all classification authority. End of story.

You appear to believe that the president can create rules for himself that he cannot break. I simply asked you for a single shred of evidence that such am argument had been successful in practice or even argued by a competent individual.

I'll take your flailing and indignation as a sign that you cannot.

Yet you don't link to the decision or quote it.

The decision is available online and I'm on a phone. Is this going to be another one of those threads where you argue for pages and pages that you don't have time to look something up, spending vastly more time arguing than it would take to do it?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/white-house-cia-official-afghanistan-107088.html



Here's an interesting development that is sure to outrage our friends on the left. My thought is that it was an accident...just as Plame was.

LOL....claiming plame = this incident....love the false equivalence that you so desperately attempt.

It ranks up there with your false claim that "Democrats have moved hard left" to draw a false equivalence and excuse to the GOP moving to the far right.

So predictable. What's next? Obama smoked pot now equals to lying about WMD in Iraq? LOL

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

LOL....claiming plame = this incident....love the false equivalence that you so desperately attempt.

It ranks up there with your false claim that "Democrats have moved hard left" to draw a false equivalence and excuse to the GOP moving to the far right.

So predictable. What's next? Obama smoked pot now equals to lying about WMD in Iraq? LOL

I noted a similarity...I did not say they were equivalent. If you actually took a minute to read my subsequent posts you would see that I was talking about Armitage and his accidental leak of Plame's identity. But I do understand that reading comprehension is difficult for some.

 

[Jhhnn]

I noted a similarity...I did not say they were equivalent. If you actually took a minute to read my subsequent posts you would see that I was talking about Armitage and his accidental leak of Plame's identity. But I do understand that reading comprehension is difficult for some.

Yes, we understand that you'd like to dismiss the fact that the outing wouldn't have been public if not for the efforts of Team Bush.

Just because Armitage admittedly said something he shouldn't have doesn't make it the public outing performed by Novak with the help of friends in very high places. He needed confirmation & got it.

Their little dance w/ reporters was utterly transparent-

"You told me!"

"Huh-uhh! You told me!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

It was a good enough he-said she-said to keep Rove from being indicted. Libby's attempts at more complex story telling failed, leading to indictment, conviction & commutation of sentence. One day behind bars & he'd probably have rolled like a marble. G Gordon Liddy he ain't.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Yes, we understand that you'd like to dismiss the fact that the outing wouldn't have been public if not for the efforts of Team Bush.

Just because Armitage admittedly said something he shouldn't have doesn't make it the public outing performed by Novak with the help of friends in very high places. He needed confirmation & got it.

Their little dance w/ reporters was utterly transparent-

"You told me!"

"Huh-uhh! You told me!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

It was a good enough he-said she-said to keep Rove from being indicted. Libby's attempts at more complex story telling failed, leading to indictment, conviction & commutation of sentence. One day behind bars & he'd probably have rolled like a marble. G Gordon Liddy he ain't.

I'm dismissing nothing. BTW, I don't know if you've heard or not, but Karl Rove was specifically cleared by Fitzgerald. Not really a lot facts here that we can hang our hat on...but good fodder for the conspiracy theorists among us.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm dismissing nothing. BTW, I don't know if you've heard or not, but Karl Rove was specifically cleared by Fitzgerald. Not really a lot facts here that we can hang our hat on...but good fodder for the conspiracy theorists among us.

Hogwash. Rove was not "cleared". Fitzgerald simply had insufficient evidence for indictment. There is a difference.

I rather suspect that Libby would have rolled over on the lot of them had it not been for commutation of his sentence. Commutation was his worst case scenario all along, and he knew it. He's now a hero/ martyr of the right wing, probably making more money than ever if not enjoying the power of being Cheney's go-to guy.

 

[Fern]

And you are saying Plame was not covert?

No. I'm saying it's not clear cut that she was.

The law pertaining to "outing" an agent has its own definition of covert and, IIRC, it has nothing to do with the CIA's classification etc. IIRC, Plame was clearly covert at some point but then later transferred to HQ. The law covers details such as years of service as covert including allow someone to be consider for a period after actual covert duty terminated. The point here is that the matter would need to be litigated to determine if she was, in fact, considered as covert under the law.

Fern

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Hogwash. Rove was not "cleared". Fitzgerald simply had insufficient evidence for indictment. There is a difference.

No charges = Cleared
That's how most people understand and speak English.

Rove Cleared No criminal, but no angel, either
http://articles.philly.com/2006-06-...-wilson-special-prosecutor-patrick-fitzgerald

I rather suspect that Libby would have rolled over on the lot of them had it not been for commutation of his sentence. Commutation was his worst case scenario all along, and he knew it. He's now a hero/ martyr of the right wing, probably making more money than ever if not enjoying the power of being Cheney's go-to guy.

Your suspicions have no basis in fact...that's all you imagining what you want to believe.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

And you are saying Plame was not covert?

At the time the Novak column was published, Plame was "in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2053209

Outing the Afghanistan Chief was much more damaging.

 

[werepossum]

First ridicule me for what DSF said, then claim his point was valid, segue into an invalid definition of "covert" & of "outing" as well.

Obviously, you parrot the ends of revisionist history the whole time, following the lead of DSF & an orchestrated campaign by right wing media-

http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/05/27/right-wing-media-draw-false-equivalence-to-down/199477

I hope you're not driving with that brain.

I noted a similarity...I did not say they were equivalent. If you actually took a minute to read my subsequent posts you would see that I was talking about Armitage and his accidental leak of Plame's identity. But I do understand that reading comprehension is difficult for some.

Difficult? Nigh impossible, I'd say.

At the time the Novak column was published, Plame was "in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2053209

Outing the Afghanistan Chief was much more damaging.

I don't believe Plame was outed at all, as she was openly working at CIA headquarters at the time, but is this outing really that damaging? I can see how his safety might be more endangered as everyone now knows he's a high value target, but it seems to me that anyone meeting with the President in a war zone is by definition not covert.

e.g. "Hey, I've noticed that Acmed and Clubmed met with that guy who met with the Great Satan's evil leader. Let's go torture him and find out why."

 

[Thebobo]

No. I'm saying it's not clear cut that she was.

The law pertaining to "outing" an agent has its own definition of covert and, IIRC, it has nothing to do with the CIA's classification etc. IIRC, Plame was clearly covert at some point but then later transferred to HQ. The law covers details such as years of service as covert including allow someone to be consider for a period after actual covert duty terminated. The point here is that the matter would need to be litigated to determine if she was, in fact, considered as covert under the law.

Fern

Maybe you missed this.
According to the CIA she was covert at the time.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18924679/

WASHINGTON — An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The CIA determined, "that the public interest in allowing the criminal prosecution to proceed outweighed the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from the official disclosure of Ms. Wilson's employment and cover status."

The CIA has not divulged any other details of the nature of Plame's cover or the methods employed by the CIA to protect her cover nor the details of her classified intelligence activities. Plame resigned from the CIA in December 2005.

 

[Fern]

Maybe you missed this.
According to the CIA she was covert at the time.
-snip-

If you read my post you'd know I didn't miss it at all. In fact, I directly addressed it.

Fern

 

[Jhhnn]

No charges = Cleared
That's how most people understand and speak English.

Rove Cleared No criminal, but no angel, either
http://articles.philly.com/2006-06-...-wilson-special-prosecutor-patrick-fitzgerald


Your suspicions have no basis in fact...that's all you imagining what you want to believe.

From your own link-

Rove, at the very least, discussed a CIA agent's position with a reporter in a bid to slime her husband. And Rove let the White House press secretary tell the public flatly, and incorrectly, that Rove had no involvement in the case.

Rove escaped indictment only because Fitzgerald insisted on iron clad cases that would be slam dunk convictions when put to a jury. Such was the situation with Libby, who had no viable defense. Others might well have been able to convict Rove had they made the decision to attempt it.

"Cleared" is when you're accused of a crime you couldn't have committed, like a murder in LA that occurred while you were giving a speech in NYC.

The rest? I'm sure that all the possible scenarios were laid out & discussed among the participants well in advance. Letting Libby be frog-marched off to Leavenworth would have been the ultimate betrayal. Being no dummy, he would have reacted appropriately.