Strike out for The Times and Wilsons

It must be disappointing for The New York Times (NYT) as they continually have to return to the drawing board to get President Bush. In their fruitless attempts to rival The Washington Post they desperately try to recreate a Woodward and Bernstein style Watergate scandal. Their latest coupe was the Joe and Valerie Plame-Wilson CIA leak case and like a deflating balloon, the relevancy of this story is fizzling.

In July 2003 Plame’s husband Joe Wilson ran a critical op-ed piece for The Times with President Bush and the Iraq War as the subject. Wilson had previously served as Ambassador to Iraq and later as a director of Foreign Policy for Africa under then President Clinton. He retired from public service in 1998 and since served as a manager for JCWilson International Ventures Corporation, which specializes in strategic management and international business development. Following a trip to Africa in February 2002 on behalf of the CIA, which involved numerous interviews with ‘dozens’ of Nigerian officials, Wilson reported that rumors of then Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein attempting to purchase high-grade uranium were false. This would conflict with President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address where he claimed British intelligence, see Butler Report, did indeed have reason to believe Hussein was attempting to purchase the chemical. It was the opinion of many in the media that the claim against Hussein was the justification for war.

Stop right here, who is Joe Wilson?

Well a background check shows the following:

*        During the mid 1980s Wilson worked as a congressional staffer for then Democrat Senator Al Gore of Tennessee.

*        In 2000 he donated $2,000 to Al Gore’s failed presidential campaign.

*        In 2003 he donated another $2,000 to Massachusetts’ Democrat Senator John Kerry nominee campaign and to the failed John Kerry/John Edwards’ presidential campaign. During 2004 he operated as a speechwriter for Kerry.

*        In the past he has donated to the campaigns of Democrats Senator Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts and New York Congressman Charles Rangel.

*        In the past he has donated to Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California.

*        He has since said he will never vote for another Republican.

Following Wilson’s Op Ed piece, Times’ columnist Robert Novak ran an article as it related to Niger, Hussein and yellowcake uranium. Novak’s stated that while Wilson did not work for the CIA, his wife, Valerie Plame-Wilson was an undercover agent for the Intelligence Agency, specializing in weapons of mass destruction. Novak credited two unnamed sources for their skinny on Wilson and Plame.

Stop, who is Valerie Plame-Wilson?

Valerie Plame-Wilson has since been proven not to be an undercover agent but was an employee for the CIA. It should be noted that nearly all employees of the CIA, including the cleaning staff, are considered classified.

The Wilsons then set about a campaign that alleged the Bush Administration had the time to defame them and used the media to facilitate such action. They also alleged their lives were endangered by the revelation of her identity. An intense investigation by the media began at who leaked Plame’s identity to Novak. Time Magazine was calling for the head of Bush advisor Karl Rove. They missed their target and by then US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate the Plame leak. It was I. “Scooter” Libby, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was revealed to be the first leak. With a grand jury indictment pending with charges of perjury Libby retired from his post in October 2005.

Since then the left wingers have all but advertised in The Times that the second leak was Vice President Cheney. There were allegations that the Bush Administration was full of holes, Swiss cheese if you will when it came to intelligence and national security. They missed it again when last week it was revealed the true identity-Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state and a reluctant supporter of the Iraq War. It has also been revealed that since the first week of his investigation Fitzgerald has known the second source. So why has it taken this long for it to be revealed. Well maybe Fitzgerald wanted to exhaust all avenues? In the process whether he attempted to or not he allowed the big media machine to doubt President Bush and Vice-President Cheney’s capabilities to run a tight ship.

Your author has previously stated the long-term reasons for Allied Forces engaged in Iraq. However to understand these reasons one must turn off American Idol and remove the images of World War II European invasion, where geographic borders were established and the protagonist donned swastikas. The reader also must assume some of the following points as fact:

*   Radical Muslim terrorists want to kill members of Western Society, specifically the United States. The reasons for their hate are irrelevant.

*   The rank and file of such terrorist groups is cultural-based. This group may span a generation, maybe several and the violence inflicted is their sole purpose in life. If to be resolved, this must be turned upside down and a permanent stamp of change must be applied.

*   They operate on all parts of the globe from Baghdad to Toronto, spanning across Europe and island nations such as Indonesia.

*   The only two ways to end this lethal threat is to stop the money supply and kill as many as you can before they get you.

*   Osama bin Laden is merely a face and Al Qaeda is only one group, therefore their removal while beneficial to the fight would not entirely remove the threat.

Unfortunately President Bush cannot simply say this to the American people or to the world for that matter, especially since Democrats comprise the other half of the US’s two party political system with their constant criticisms with no alternatives. Has the Democrat party previously failed in addressing this international threat? Yes, when the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 the conventional thinking of the then Clinton Administration was to prosecute the party that perpetrated such an event. However where they failed was to see the bigger picture.

How do you take on such a task? You take it by the horns and going to the heart of it, grabbing the jugular. You take it to the birthplace and go in packing. Thus why the Iraq War was needed, the preverbal hornets’ nest needed to be stirred and what have we since learned? We have learned that the majority of Europe in their desperate need for a cheaper labor pool remains paralyzed by multiculturalism and their own backyard possibly saturated with such extremists. They cannot be relied upon to stand with us. We have learned that national leaders such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while not fully wearing their stripes, will certainly speak in their same language. We have learned that within the United States figures such as Noam Chomsky and fantasy spinster Michael Moore will profit and gain notoriety in their failing to see the obvious or simply not caring enough to open their eyes wide open. We have learned that the Democrat party will offer criticism but have no alternative solution.

We have also learned that despite the findings of serious weapon caches in Iraq that the big mainstream media machine will not admit to their existence. We have learned that Libya’s de-facto leader Muammar al-Gaddafi does not want to be on the side of the terrorists. We have learned that both Hammas and Hezbollah take their marching orders from Iran in their campaign against Israel. We have learned that despite living in greater danger than in the US and memories of Hussein’s torture, that the Iraqi people want Democracy.

With one less dictator and at the least a terrorist sympathizer gone, the Allied Forces can effectively deal with Muslim terrorists. A country that borders two other threats Iran and Syria, also surrounded by allies Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey. The country is a strategic heartbeat if you will and one that will prove fruitful if the Bush Administration is allowed to continue. Saddam Hussein’s control over Iraq was facilitated by tyranny and violence, not the foundation for a civil society. This last point was contradicted by the Left when they stated that Iraq was a sovereign nation. They fail to remember history. Would they have stood and waited for Hitler to land upon the eastern seaboard?

Lebanon and Iran revisited

As the big media machine in the US and most of the Western World for that matter attempted to ‘understand’ Hezbollah during the nasty confrontation with Israel on soil of Lebanon many news agencies failed to provide an accurate picture. In their reporting many were all too happy to portray Israel as an aggressor and Hezbollah as some kind of a combination consisting of one part charity group and one party political party. Hezbollah, despite being funded and supplied by Iran, were seen as doing good service in Lebanon with their hospitals, schools and welfare stipends for those that would displaced from their home as a result of the battle. Then the big media machine released a sigh of relief when Israel agreed to ceasefire and backed away. Then the story has been suddenly dropped from regular reporting.

What the media industry did enhance while reporting of the carnage in Lebanon was that Hezbollah was directing their rockets in civilian areas in Northern Israel. According to widely available reports, however receiving scant attention, rockets fired from Hezbollah strongholds in Southern Lebanon was aimed at areas consisting of 1.4million civilians in cities of Haifa, Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Karmiel, Tiberias and Nahariya. The rockets killed 43 people, seven of them children, destroying homes, hospitals, businesses and personal residences. The statistics for home displacement range from 300,000-500,000. While this happened the media machine churned out plenty on Lebanon.

The machine has failed in their reporting of the Israel-Hezbollah confrontation and now fails at reporting current progress of the ceasefire. As stated it has all but nearly been dropped from national media attention. As many will remember it was the United Nations that came to the rescue, surprising your author when they were able to first hammer out an agreement and secondly actually see it come to fruition.

What has happened since then? On September 9 it was revealed that Iran, upon the moment Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon, had resumed shipping to the Beirut Airport. Israeli military sources have stated that Iran bypassed any inspection and are believed to be shipping weaponry. How is this happening? Well UN Secretary Kofi Annan, in a desperate attempt to enforce 1701, insisted on UN inspectors to be present at Beirut’s airport. This was believed to be an attempt to appease Israel. Annan was then supposed to have the Lebanese Siniora government implement this key part based upon a good faith pledge. The Lebanon Prime Minister Fouad Siniora then barred UN inspectors on airport’s grounds.

However despite the ever obvious and predictable failures of the UN, all is not lost with regards to the ceasefire and this brief period civility. As penned prior by your author in this blog entry, the crux or seed of the problem is Iran. This is all common knowledge by now. While Iran may enjoy the temporary satisfaction in slipping through the UN's proposed rules, the UNIFL (United Nations Interim Forces In Lebanon), which was created in 1978, has ramped up a presence of sea and air military presence at levels not seen since World War II along the Mediterranean Sea. They consist of at least 20 warships from the US and European countries, an estimated 2,000 troops from the same areas. Additionally it is believed that this not part of the peacekeeping effort led by the UN but rather a preparation for a war between the US and Israel against Iran. Syria also looms in the background. The effort consists of three leaders-French General Alain Pellegrini, a US command post and a NATO force.

The question is whether or not such a war will take place. As your author stated in the mentioned blog entry such an event is likely as pressure for Iran to stop their efforts in nuclear energy becomes ever increasing or if there is another attempt against Israel by Hezbollah. If Ahmadinejad complies with the UN wishes he will lose face in front of his militants and the ever influential Muslim clerics. He is of the same cloth as many other outspoken dictators, a cult of personality that thus far has yet to be judged as a man of words or of actions. For now the clock is ticking.

If the reader would like to know more about the mid east, Israel or the war against terror, what the big media machine is not telling you, check out the DEBKAfile.