For those who have forgotten, retired Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent by the CIA to Nigeria to vet accusations that Saddam Hussein (then president of Iraq) was attempting to obtain yellow-cake uranium from the country. Wilson found no evidence to support the claims. Despite that investigation, the false assertion began working its way into cases for the illegal war made by the Bush administration and Bully Boy Bush himself would say that they'd recently learned Saddam attempted to obtain yellow-cake uranium from Africa. Was that Nigeria?
Wilson, at that point didn't know, and attempted to find out. Maybe Saddam had tried with another African country? Nope. It was Nigeria. The administration was lying.
What do you do?
Wilson began warning reporters and then began speaking out publicly.
In retaliation, the administration that LIED and attacked. This was their pattern repeatedly. When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill went public with issues, the administration attacked him and the press -- hey, David Gregory -- ran with the administration's lies and presented them as fact. In O'Neill's case, he was being accused of stealing government information on discs. Gregory stood on camera, for Today, waiving a copy of Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty and repeating the White House charges with a who-knows-what-really-happened spin. Apparently the only one who could know reality would be the non-idiots who knew to read the introduction of a book before repeating baseless charges because the discs are covered in the intro. (As was so often the case on Today, Katie Couric would have to grab the mop and clean up for her co-workers the following day.)
Now they were going after Joe Wilson.
And it wasn't enough to go after Joe Wilson because this was a petty, mafia-like administration. They didn't just go after Wilson, they went after his wife and began outing her to the press as a CIA agent until they found some one (Robert Novak) willing to print their tale.
Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent and her cover was blown by the government she worked for.
Thanks to the efforts of George H.W. Bush and his administration, what had just taken place was a crime. Not for reporters, but for government officials or workers involved in the outing.
Dick Cheney's right-hand I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby ended up convicted from the investigation. Many thought and hoped others would be as well. That was not the case. It was hoped that with a new administration, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson would have the support of the government on their side as they attempted to discover what had happened to them.
That has not been the case. "Status quo you can believe in" is the Obama administration's slogan and they've done everything they can to prevent the truth from coming out.
R. Jeffrey Smith's "New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak" (Washington Post) takes you through the latest that's emerged as Barry O's Justice Dept argues the truth must be buried. One of their claims is that to allow Cheney's testimony during the Plamegate investigation to be known would prevent other vice presidents from offering testimony to a criminal investigation. Uh, no, it wouldn't. And if testimony means anything, it means that it's not buried out of fear of what might happened some day.
Barack's administration is not open, it's not trying to be open and is not attempting to put the US back on balance. It is attempting to continue all the abuses from the Bush administration. And it gets a lot of help from a cowardly Congress. (It's noted in the article that Congress once fought the Bush White House to make Cheney's testimony public. Not noted in the article is that any member of Congress could make Cheney's testimony public on the House or Senate floor.)
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4314. Tonight? 4321.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
the washington post
r. jeffrey smith
