Larry Johnson: Valerie Plame Wilson Speaks Muzzled

[FourScore]

Valerie Plame Wilson Speaks Muzzled
By Larry Johnson on October 19, 2007 at 10:36 PM in Current Affairs


Four years and three months after waking up on a Sunday morning and learning that her career as a clandestine intelligence officer was over because of a stupid column by Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson finally gets to meet the public and tell some of her story.

Sunday night she appears on 60 Minutes, and kicks off a book tour that will start Monday morning on the Today Show and include stops at Larry King Live and the Daily Show. Unfortunately, Val cannot be totally forthcoming. I am not talking about revealing sources or methods that would compromise intelligence operations. She is a solid professional and would never entertain such nonsense. But the CIA succeeded in getting a Federal judge to block Val from admitting that she started working with the CIA in September of 1985.

It is as if Rod Serling has returned from the dead with a 21st Century version of the Twilight Zone. The CIA won the initial round in Federal Court and insists Valerie cannot acknowledge working at the CIA prior to February 2002. Because of a pending appeal in her freedom of speech case against the CIA, she cannot say anything about joining the CIA in September of 1985 fresh out of college. She cannot say anything about her initial impression of her Career Trainee classmates–such as Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan, Mike “the Griz” Grimaldi, Precious Flower, and mois. She is proscribed from telling you about wandering the forests of Camp Peary learning land navigation and she certainly will not, at least for now, be able to tell you about being taken hostage and subjected to torture for two days.

Valerie especially cannot tell you about her first tour overseas as a case officer. Ironically, her first boss overseas–Fred Rustmann–has gone on the record and tried early on in this scandal to argue that she was not a NOC (i.e., Non Official Cover officer). But Fred, who was forced out of the CIA and into early retirement because of misdeeds overseas, was not around long enough to learn that after her first tour Val was given the opportunity to become a NOC.

Not only did she get the opportunity. She took full advantage of it and embarked on a career that would change her life in ways she never imagined. She walked away from diplomatic cover and was left naked of the protection normally accorded to diplomats. She had to rely on her wits and tradecraft, and did so successfully for many years, until betrayed by the Bush Administration. But she cannot tell you about that period. At least not now...

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/10/19/valerie-plame-wilson-speaks-muzzled/

[mmonk]

1. K&R

[durrrty libby]

2. k

[Spazito]

3. The treasonous betrayal of Valerie Plame and her cover company

is still breathtaking in it's scope, imo, and despicable in it's acceptance by the public at large.

[Richard Steele]

4. K&R

[yodermon]

5. *she* was TORTURED? *TORTURED*?? OH FOR THE Love of

.. bushco must burn. they must burn. How Valerie Wilson has not burnt them from afar with her just and righteous rage I don't understand.
sweet christ.

[Garbo 2004]

8. That's a reference to CIA boot camp at Camp Peary aka "The Farm."

The trainees are "captured" and subject to interrogation as part of their training.

Other former CIA folks have previously publically written about their training at the Farm. Plame cannot, as Johnson notes, due to the restrictions placed on her by the CIA.

[Usrename]

6. 60 Minutes had better do this absolutely correctly on Sunday.

If I hear one hint of a breath of an intonation that her NOC status was ever somehow questionable, I'm going nuclear with the white-hot heat of a thousand Suns.

I mean it, I'm in a raging lather already, just contemplating the possibility that it could even happen! :nuke:

[Blackhatjack]

7. Every interview spot that Plame does Interviewers should have Johnson & others to fill in the holes

I would have Plame say there are matters she is prohibited from talking about, and then cut to Johnson and let him answer the questions she is not allowed to answer.

Obviously neither would betray our country.

However, things like the date she went to work with the CIA, who she worked with, have all been in the public domain. Let Johnson tell the listeners....

[DemReadingDU]

10. that is a great idea!

[formercia]

9. I wonder if they still have their weekly venison teryaki

at the club on the 'Farm'.

[Berry Cool]

11. I have to ask myself why it was initially going to be Keith Olbermann who talked to her

live on stage when her book was first about to be published, and then when the legal flap happened with the CIA that event was canceled, and now that the CIA has succeeded in muzzling some of what she can say, the person who gets to interview her first is Katie Couric.

[spanone]

12. She should go on television and spill her guts. tell every fucking thing she knows about the CIA

every fucking detail