Karl and Valerie
Jul. 12th, 2005 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneNewsweek has a good summary of the betrayal of Valerie Plame's role as an undercover CIA operator. The story is here. Basically her real job was betrayed to the public as a retaliatory attempt to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger in 2002 to investigate the "yellow cake" uranium that Iraq had allegedly tried to buy to make nukes with.
I hope the special prosecutor hangs Rove high and dry. The administration is in a difficult position in that Georgie made a public announcement and promised to fire whoever was responsible for leaking her identity.
I think it will take an indictment and conviction for Georgie to follow through on that.
Myself, I think they should have a high treason crime. If you sell military secrets to any foreign power, high treason. If the secrets you sell results in the death of a secret agent/undercover officer, high treason. If you betray the identity of an undercover officer, high treason. It should carry a life sentence without parole and without possibility of pardon. Go ahead and keep an appeal process in place so that if exculpatory evidence is later found, the case can be reexamined, that's only fair and in accord with our judicial system.
But it pisses me off when the Israelis asks for the Pollards to be given to them. Or when people like Aldrich Ames, whose leaks lead to the Soviets executing ten agents, are still alive. Or John Walker builds a complete spy ring. I go back and forth on the death penalty, but for something like this, I think a firing squad is a good punishment if what you did leads to the death of operatives.
(Granted, there are irregularities in Pollard's conviction, he still sold secrets to a foreign government. He agreed to a plea bargain of one count of passing information to an ally, but the evidence showed that he passed a ton of info. The US reneged and instead of a light sentence they put him in for life. I don't care if that gov't is friendly, neutral, or an enemy, it's still betrayal, and I don't care if it's wartime or peace.)
Not that I'm opinionated or anything. :-)
I hope the special prosecutor hangs Rove high and dry. The administration is in a difficult position in that Georgie made a public announcement and promised to fire whoever was responsible for leaking her identity.
I think it will take an indictment and conviction for Georgie to follow through on that.
Myself, I think they should have a high treason crime. If you sell military secrets to any foreign power, high treason. If the secrets you sell results in the death of a secret agent/undercover officer, high treason. If you betray the identity of an undercover officer, high treason. It should carry a life sentence without parole and without possibility of pardon. Go ahead and keep an appeal process in place so that if exculpatory evidence is later found, the case can be reexamined, that's only fair and in accord with our judicial system.
But it pisses me off when the Israelis asks for the Pollards to be given to them. Or when people like Aldrich Ames, whose leaks lead to the Soviets executing ten agents, are still alive. Or John Walker builds a complete spy ring. I go back and forth on the death penalty, but for something like this, I think a firing squad is a good punishment if what you did leads to the death of operatives.
(Granted, there are irregularities in Pollard's conviction, he still sold secrets to a foreign government. He agreed to a plea bargain of one count of passing information to an ally, but the evidence showed that he passed a ton of info. The US reneged and instead of a light sentence they put him in for life. I don't care if that gov't is friendly, neutral, or an enemy, it's still betrayal, and I don't care if it's wartime or peace.)
Not that I'm opinionated or anything. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-13 01:36 am (UTC)