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Monday, March 19. 2007

Screwing Valerie and the Veterans

Sunday Night was a Deep Purple kinda night — actually a Pink Floyd kinda night, but while scrolling through my iPod “Lazy” and “Burn” just jumped right out there. Nothing likes some old British Blues Rock to end the evening and start a rant about politics.

Valerie Plame-Wilson

Valerie Plame-Wilson testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week. And there are still people out there claiming the ambassador’s wife wasn’t a covert operative. Even the current Director of the C.I.A., General Michael V. Hayden, Nixon’s … err … I mean Bush’s … latest controversial pick for that job has said unequivocally Ms. Plame was a covert operative and her work and identity were classified. And certainly Brewster-Jennings, the front company the C.I.A. used to foster that classified identity, was covert and classified as well.

The harm Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage did to our national security is known only by those in the intelligence community, but Plame was stark in her assessment that lives were at stake:
“Not only have breaches of national security endangered CIA officers, it has jeopardized and even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents who, in turn, risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence.

Vice President Dick Cheney

Lives are literally at stake. Every single one of my former CIA colleagues, from my fellow covert officers to analysts to technical operations officers to even the secretaries, understand the vulnerabilities of our officers and recognize that the travesty of what happened to me could happen to them.

We in the CIA always know that we might be exposed and threatened by foreign enemies.

It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover.”

So far, none of those men is paying for the crime of exposing one of our covert agents. Libby, of course, faces sentencing for obstructing justice and lying under oath, but not for violating his oath to keep secrets. It’s time for special prosecutor Fitzgerald to step up to the plate and file more charges, this time against the one who ordered the outing of the Valerie Plame: Vice President Dick Cheney.

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And now, after more than 30 years, the V.A. diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Better late than never I guess.

We’ll see how this all plays out with the upcoming appointments, if the only answers seem to be chemical. While waiting for some blood tests I had the opportunity to sit with a young woman recently returned from Operation Iraqi Enduring Freedom, that’s the official name of Bush’s war, and what we both agreed on was that the scandal of Walter Reed Hospital has now made the entire military and Veterans health care system better, at least in the short term while everyone is paying attention to the attention and care our veterans are receiving. Currently, the V.A. is over-whelmed by all the new veterans coming into the system.

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On a final note: I took this test

Apparently I am the Empress Card. What card are you?

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 13:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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