CIA finally fed up with George W. Bush and the amateurs around him

CIA finally fed up with George W. Bush and the amateurs around him

VHeadline.com commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: In the shabby, sham, and phony United States "democracy," a controversy over the rule of law rages although the US capitalist press falsely portrays the controversy as a mere case of criminal law that affirms the rule of law in the USA.

Of late, the US capitalist press closely covers developments in Venezuela where the capitalist press portrays every alleged criminal act by a high state officials ... especially alleged unlawful acts by the Venezuelan President ... as something that impugns the rule of law and destroys even the possibility of democracy because the rule of law is a fundamental principle of democracy.

But the malignantly hypocritical and incurably forked-tongue US capitalist media argues, in defense of the GOP dictatorship, that an alleged criminal act by a high US official or officials, like Bush, only invokes criminal law which affirms the rule of law and the legitimacy of US democracy.

Duplicitous standards are, of course, characteristic of the current regime in the USA which is only a so-called "democracy," shabby, sham, and phony.

The law, in what is called the Plame Affair, believed to have been broken by a vicious pack of suspected imperialist authorities, which include George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Karl Rove, and Lewis"Scooter" Libby, all big shots in the imperialist regime, is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 which, in part, says:

"Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

In other words, whoever blows the cover of an imperialist spy breaks US law and imperialism is gonna get’cha.

The four imperialist authorities — Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby (and perhaps others) — are suspected of breaking this law by leaking the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA spy to a number of reporters (some of whom may also be spies) of the US capitalist media.

The four imperialist authorities leaked on Mrs. Wilson because her husband Joseph Wilson told the truth about Iraq not buying or trying to buy uranium in Africa for a nuclear program before the March 2003 US aggression against the Iraqi people.

The four imperialist authorities wanted to use this lie — Iraq bought uranium to make weapons of mass destruction — as an item in a pack of lies as a pretext for the March 2003 US aggression against Iraq. Finding the lie irresistible, the four authorities used this lie anyway to justify US aggression against Iraq even after Joseph Wilson proved to them it was a flat-out lie.

After the US aggression in March 2003, Joseph Wilson was very upset and told the US capitalist media that imperialist authorities used lies to justify their invasion of Iraq and their killing of the Iraqi people.
Unlike some Americans, especially GOPs like Rush Limbaugh and "reborn" Christians like Pat Robertson, Joseph Wilson believes killing people on the basis of lies is wrong.

Enraged by the truthfulness of Wilson and by decision of the CIA to pick someone who would tell the truth, the four imperialist authorities revealed that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Palme, was a CIA spy, a revelation that inflicted and excited extreme anguish in her and her employer and that gave joy to the four imperialist authorities who had successfully leaked on or completely soaked her, her husband, and her boss, the CIA.

In September 2003, the CIA demanded a Justice Department investigation to find out who blew Mrs. Wilson’s cover. Attorney General John Ashcroft, claiming an undeniable conflict of interest, immediately recused himself from the investigation and delegated the investigative responsibility to Deputy Attorney General James Comey who quickly saw he was being set up to take the fall. From September to December of 2003, Deputy AG Comey searched for a way out of the set up.

Then on December 30, 2003, Deputy AG Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel to conduct the investigation of the leak.

Special Counsel Fitzgerald is near the end of his investigation and is widely expected to seek indictments against Rove and Libby who are both expendable patsies. The conventional wisdom is Bush and Cheney will walk even though it is highly unlikely that Rove and Libby would have leaked — that is, launched a deliberate and concerted campaign to discredit her and her husband as lying spies — on Mrs. Wilson without the knowledge and consent of their immediate supervisors, Bush and Cheney, respectively.

Bush and Cheney will likely borrow the defense of their mutual friend Ken Lay, former Enron CEO, "Nobody told me anything."

Ideologically, the question is not whether this case, Plame Affair, is either a criminal or a rule of law case, for clearly this case is both a criminal and a rule of law case. The criminal side of the case is obvious and that is unfortunately all that the US capitalist press deals with. And lamentably most of the public discussion mimics the coverage in the capitalist press.

The Plame Affair would be only a criminal case if the US government normally upheld the rule of law when high government officials break it. Under the Bush regime, this is not the case. The Plame affair is a rule of law case because the US government does not normally uphold the law against lawbreakers who are high officials of the state, like Bush and Cheney. Bush and Cheney follow the law only when the law happens to agree with the goals that the high officials are pursuing, otherwise, they disregard law and view themselves as above the law.

Nothing here implies, of course, that the rule of law applies only to the head of state and to other high officials. The rule of law applies to everybody, including the head of state and other high officials. Law is like death, it spares no one.

The rule of law does not imply that the law that rules is just or unjust. The rule of law implies that the state upholds the law whatever it merit or lack thereof with respect to justice. The rule of law is law itself and the state must uphold it, for otherwise it vanishes, and with it, the possibility of democracy, because the notion that state exercises power in accordance with the rule of law is a fundamental principle of democracy.
A fundamental principle, that is, almost everywhere but in the United States under Bush dictatorship

The Bush regime has consistently and flagrantly disregarded the rule of law and this case, involving the spy Valerie Plame Wilson, is just another instance of its contempt for the rule of law. The rule of law vanished from the United States in the beginning years of the Bush regime and so did democracy.

Some of Bush’s more flagrant violations include:

(1) George W. Bush and Richard Cheney disregarded the rule of law since the day of the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections when they broke US and state election laws by rigging the vote. Free and fair elections, like the rule of law, is also a fundamental principle of democracy.

(2) Bush and Cheney disregarded, in 2001, the rule of law by smuggling through the servile US legislature the patently unconstitutional USA Patriot Act which lets the GOP dictator of the United States confine people indefinitely without charge or trial or counsel or notice to family and to the public,

(3) The two imperialist authorities have violated ... horrendously ... the rule of law and basic decency when they authorized the torture of POWs in violation of the Geneva Convention, a US treaty, and in violation of the US Anti-Torture Act as well as the US War Crimes Act, and

(4) The two imperialist bosses violated the rule of law when they lied ... before the legislature and before the American people ... the United States into war against Iraq.

These continuous and extreme violations of the law have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings ... genocide on an enormous scale ... horrible and unspeakable crimes against humanity ... so why is there suddenly all this noise about imperialist bosses — Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Libby — violating the law by outing some political queer from the spy closet? In other words, why is this case being investigated and perhaps prosecuted and the other cases which are thousand times more inhuman and unjust virtually ignored?

Why is the state suddenly and finally upholding this law that protects the anonymity of spies when the state does nothing to uphold the numerous other laws which the Bush regime flagrantly and regularly breaks?

The state, of course, upholds the law and affirms the rule of law by the investigation and prosecution of the lawbreakers whoever they may be.

The answer to the question of why is the state in the USA investigating or perhaps prosecuting or otherwise upholding the law in the Plame Affair, contrary to its manifest tendency in most other cases, seems to be the special status of the victim of the alleged criminal act in the Plame Affair.

In the alleged criminal acts of the Bush regime listed above, the victims are only the American people whose individuals right are under assault by the USA Patriot Act and "creative" law enforcement, the US legislature which is reduced to two houses of cowards and sycophants, US judiciary which rubber stamps the illegalities of the Bush dictatorship, the Iraqi people who are innocent of the dirty US lies about weapons of mass destruction, and thousands of the tragic torture victims who are abducted and transported to US concentration camps in Cuba, the Middle East, and in some of the former Soviet Republics for indefinite confinement and for inhuman treatment.

These categories of people, including the American people, don’t really count with the US imperialists.
The imperialists believe they can trample on these "weak or servile" categories of people with impunity and immunity.

In the Plame Affair, however, the victim is the Central Intelligence Agency which is neither weak, servile nor cowardly, although it is often sycophantic. Outing Valerie Plame Wilson victimizes the CIA because the agency believes that the unauthorized disclosure of the identity of its spies sets up CIA agents to get hit by individuals connected to the countless assassination victims of the CIA. In the old days, CIA assassination victims were mostly communists who were silly enough to exposed themselves, but nowadays, the CIA is liable to assassinate anybody and anybody is liable to have a grudge against the agency.

So, unauthorized disclosure of the identity of its spies is a serious matter with the agency.

The George W. Bush regime and the CIA never really hit it off even though Bush’s father was once the boss of the CIA. The Bush regime independently privatized a number of the CIA’s functions and operations, subordinated the Agency to intelligence czar, and blamed Bush regime’s lies, when exposed and caught, on the agency as intelligence failures. All of these measures and others angered the spies in the CIA. Then the Bush regime blew the cover of a spy because her husband refused to lie for Bush. The disclosure of the spy shows the degree of contempt the Bush regime feels for the spies who are not yet domesticated politically.

After the Plame disclosure, the CIA was finally fed up with Bush and the amateurs around him and finally resolved to teach the conceited GOP regime a good lesson.

To teach the Bush dictatorship a lesson, the first thing that CIA had to do was to neutralize the US Attorney General John Ashcroft (the "AG"), the officially, at least, highest guardian of the rule of law in the land. The GOP dictatorship cannot disregard the rule of law unless the AG let’s them and protects them. The AG has to be a team player before the destruction of the rule of law is secure. As long as the AG stood beside them, the four imperialist authorities could leak on anybody. And they did. So, in September 2003, the CIA came down on US Attorney General John Ashcroft like a ton of bricks. Ashcroft quickly dumped the case on his deputy and the deputy quickly dumped the case a special counsel whom the deputy appointed. The AG showed disloyalty to the lawless Bush regime when he allowed the CIA to neutralize him. The crooks in the Bush regime counted on Ashcroft not to uphold the law and to block others from upholding it.

Naturally, the Bush regime quickly dumped the useless Ashcroft after he was neutralized.

During the course of the Justice department investigation before the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel, the CIA leaked intelligence to the Justice Department investigators and to the capitalist media. It became impossible for Deputy Attorney General Comey to whitewash the case with the usual GOP lies and get the Bush regime off the hook.

Why was the CIA successful in the neutralization of the powerful AG and his deputy?

The Bush dictatorship represents only the right-wing of the US bourgeoisie. But the CIA still represents, even after taking hard blows from Bush, the whole US bourgeoisie of about 8 millionaires, including its liberal wing which better known as a bunch of cowards. By rigging the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Bush demonstrated that he can push around the whole US bourgeoisie. So, it’s bizarre that he doesn’t seem to be able push around the CIA which represents the whole US bourgeoisie, not just its right-wing. Indeed, it appears that some key members of the hard-core right-wing dictatorship under George W. Bush have already fled from the regime and have ratted out Bush to the special counsel. Somehow, the wider interests of the class of capitalists seems to have prevailed over the narrower interests of a rightwing sector of the ruling class.

The CIA does not oppose the GOP dictatorship over the United States. In general, the CIA seems to believe that a GOP dictatorship is good for the US bourgeoisie. But the CIA seems to believe that Bush overreaches when he tries to extend his dictatorship from over the American people and from over the three branches of government to the CIA. The CIA is an invisible state within a state and as such possesses a kind of sovereignty, within limits, or separation of powers, within limits, or autonomy, within limits. As far as dictatorships in general are concerned, the CIA has nothing per se against them. The CIA has overthrown a lot more democracies and imposed a lot more dictatorships than the Bush regime which has prevailed, in this regard, mainly in the United States in 2000 and 2004 and Haiti in 2004.

The key player in the Plame Affair is now the special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald who may indict the small fry Rove and Libby and let the big imperialist bosses Bush and Cheney walk. But Bush may not be willing to throw the meat-laden Rove to the dogs because Rove knows quite a bit. But Cheney wouldn’t hesitate to throw "Scooter" to the dogs. Cheney would be thrilled to throw "Scooter" Libby to the dogs. And the dogs would be happy to have "Scooter.."

If Bush and Cheney walk, the failure or the refusal to uphold the law against the top GOP leaders demonstrates that rule of law has vanished, and with it, US democracy has vanished.

What remains is what US Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia calls the "cloak of legality" which is intended to fool everybody into believing that the rule of law and democracy still exist.

If the special counsel doesn’t indict Bush and Cheney, the three most probable explanations of how the fix was done are

(1) the Bush and the CIA make a deal and CIA calls off the its dogs or

(2) the AG or a panel of goose-stepping GOP judges dismisses the special counsel or

(3) Bush makes a deal (or obstructs justice) with the special counsel.

To attempt (3) or to buy the special counsel is extremely dangerous for Bush. To do (2) or to fire the special counsel will provoke a media and a bourgeois frenzy. Even sectors of the US bourgoisie will suddenly begin to babble about the "rule of law."

So, that leaves (1) or to make a deal with the CIA.

All that the CIA wants is to protect the CIA. As far as the CIA is concerned, Bush can keep his slimy and lawless dictatorship over the timid or intimidated American people.

One can argue that the Plame Affair does not attest in any way to a rule of law problem in the USA, but the Affair goes only to the inviolability of the CIA.

But this inviolability of the spies is enshrined in law and upholding the law also and incidentally defends the inviolability. Plus, unofficial and official inviolability of spies, like their official cousins the diplomats, occupy a queer and weird and often nasty relationship with the rule of law.

Fundamentally, spies feel they are above the law and the law must serve spies, not vice versa.

The Bush regime has a similar attitude.

Clearly, the Plame Affair is more than a criminal case, such as the O. J. Simpson and Robert Blake cases in LA. Contrary to the untruths of the US capitalist media, the Plame Affair has important political and ideological implications. After all, Simpson may have got only two and Blake, only one.

But George W. Bush kills in the hundreds of thousands, although he insists it’s against the "law" to count Iraqi and Haitian casualties.
And if you go to Iraq or to Haiti and try to count the dead, you will likely be killed by US forces or pro-US forces.

And you will not be the first enumerator to fall.

After all, the US people ... or, at least, the ruling GOPs ... don’t want to know how many Iraqis or how many Haitians or others whom George W. Bush, the US monster, kills.

The number impugns the shabby, sham, and phony US "democracy" of lawless GOP rulers and leaked-on US citizens.

Arthur Shaw
belial4444ATaol.com

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