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Commentary Too - Jun 7, 2006 - Printable Version
- The Plame Truth
by Robin Buckallew
Three years ago, Joseph Wilson wrote an article questioning the statement in George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson made this allegation on the basis of a detailed investigation he had done, including traveling to Niger to track down individuals involved and check out the paperwork first hand. Such “reality-based” thinking proved too much for the folks in charge at the White House. Soon, someone connected with the administration was shopping around for a journalist to do their dirty work, and found just such a stellar soul in the person of Robert Novak of The Capital Gang. Thanks to teamwork between the government and the mainstream media, soon the entire country knew that Valerie Plame, aka Valerie Wilson, wife of Joseph Wilson, was an undercover agent with the CIA, working on sensitive missions involving homeland security. Howls of outrage arose nationwide, as everyone contemplated the implications of this incident, and President Bush vowed that the leakers would be found, and they would be punished. Now, a mere 3 years after the initial incident, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is accused of committing the indiscretion, and there is a great deal of evidence that the trail of guilt goes all the way to the top. In spite of this, no heads have rolled. There is very little evidence to indicate that any heads are going to roll, unless you count the head of Libby, who appears to have been offered up as the sacrificial lamb to appease the public’s appetite for blood. The saga continues. From the beginning, I’ve found something very disturbing about this entire episode. The first thing everybody said when the issue came up was that this would impede the ability of the CIA to do its job. My first reaction, as a good, card-carrying civil rights advocate was good – the CIA needs to be impeded in doing their job, which usually involves overthrowing smaller governments we don’t happen to like, upholding dictators and other nasty fellows we do happen to like for the moment, planning assassinations of Fidel Castro using particularly ridiculous and vaudevillian schemes, and of course, spying on anyone that dares to breathe on the face of the planet – especially if they happen to breathe peacefully without any particular bellicosity. I keep looking around me, expecting that this line of thought would occur to others who had been following the antics of the CIA for the past several decades. Nary a peep – in fact, most of the left was breathless with indignation at the interference with the sacred duty of the CIA to keep us “safe”. All those years that these same individuals had been so concerned with who would keep us safe from the CIA, and suddenly, their every thought, word and deed was expended in support of a clandestine organization that engages in expensive and illegal actions on our behalf, leading us to be regarded with suspicion worldwide. There were, of course, a handful of exceptions, people such as Alexander Cockburn, who were able to remember what principles they held yesterday, and not let blind hatred for the president lead them to make substantially contradictory arguments in pursuit of some illusory and elusive idea of “homeland security”.
Perhaps the worst part of all this, however, is not what the media and the public are focusing on, but what they are ignoring. For three years now, I’ve waited and listened and expected that someone, anyone, would address what seems to me the most significant and frightening issue of this whole incident. In all this time, I have not heard one single debate about the most obvious and most disturbing thing of all, leading me to believe that America is oblivious to the greater implications of what “Plamegate” really has shown us about this administration. Did it demonstrate that the White House was willing to break the rules in pursuit of its own ends? Not really – we were already sadly aware of that. Did it demonstrate that the White House really wasn’t as concerned about the security of the country as they were about their own political positions? Well, if we needed this to demonstrate that for us, we were not paying attention. Did it demonstrate that Robert Novak would do anything for a scoop, and to stay in the good graces of the Bush administration? Well, from a guy who refers to himself as “the prince of darkness”, nothing should come as too big a surprise. No, the one thing that this demonstrated above all else, and that no one seems ready to comment on, is that Dubya was ready to violate the most sacred of all rules of good behavior – he was willing to go after the families of those who crossed him. Joseph Wilson annoyed him, so he did what no decent, well-bred individual would do – he attacked his wife. This was a particularly egregious attack, since it not only threatened her good name and her career, it also exposed her to the possibility of physical danger. The laws of decency and morality cry out against such behavior, but to date there has been no one to articulate them.
When I was a schoolgirl, every playground bully knew – if you wanted to hurt someone, you insulted his mother. This was the low blow, the hitting below the belt that only a true bully would engage in. It branded a guy as a jerk, but he didn’t mind, because he knew it hurt. As you grew older, you learned a lot of rules from your parents, your teachers and your chums. Among these rules, one of the top is that you don’t attack the innocent family members of your enemy. Only the lowest of the low do that. That sort of revenge went out with the Old Testament, and no civilized person would consider engaging in that sort of behavior. Anything else was just indecent, and who among us would want our mothers and grandmothers to see us acting that way? Perhaps some will claim that Dubya isn’t too bright, and he didn’t understand that rule. I think the evidence indicates that he does. After all, during the 2004 debates, the entire punditocracy was quick to jump into the fray and point fingers of blame at John Kerry for an alleged misstep (which was, of course, badly misstated to make it a misstep, but that’s another story altogether). They know the rules. They simply assume that the rules don’t apply to them.
So, why hasn’t the press mentioned this? It isn’t just the mainstream media – I haven’t seen this topic discussed in the alternative press, either. Have we forgotten the rules of common decency? Are we so eager to pursue legal infractions that we forget about the implications of those actions which are not illegal, but are extremely immoral? How is it that the citizens of this country are willing to stand aside and let such an action be unchallenged at its base? This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern of uncivilized behavior, and the whole thing is rotten to the core. We have heard tales of women and children being arrested in Iraq in hopes that their husbands and fathers will talk. It seems attacking families is par for the course. If it works, why not? No doubt some pundits will mock and deride those who “don’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done to win the war on terror”, and will criticize anyone who dares to question the President if he feels the need to violate the rules of nicety. We’re not wimps, they’ll tell you, and we will win whatever it takes. So just stand aside, you girly-men, and let us at the enemy (of course, we’re not going to really fight, we’re going to send some much younger, better trained, and more impoverished individuals whose lives don’t mean as much to us as ours do). All the rules of polite society have been pitched in the dustbin, and all the veneer of civilization has been stripped off. And yet we still kid ourselves that we live in a civilized country.
So, today Joseph Wilson. Tomorrow, who? Do you also have a wife or husband that you care about? Do you have children that you cherish, and look forward to tucking in every night? Do you have a dog or a cat that you consider part of the family? If so, I would tell you, you’re vulnerable, too. That is the point of the Plame incident. Not that one woman was targeted, not that the CIA was slowed down in its clandestine activities for a couple of weeks. The real take home message is the subtle, subconscious one they sent out with the entire sordid affair. Guard yourself. Watch what you say, because we might come after those you love. The playground bullies have been set loose in Washington, and they haven’t matured one bit since they used to fling cruel taunts at nerdy kids on their preppy playgrounds in the third grade. Perhaps they had no mothers or grandmothers to teach them the rules? Don’t you believe it. They know the rules. They simply don’t care. They firmly believe the rules don’t apply to them.
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