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June 29, 2005 I'm delighted to learn that the US Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of New York Times correspondent Judith Miller and Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper. They have adamantly refused to reveal the identity of the person or persons that may have been behind the leaking of Valerie Plame's name to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak. Allegedly, the leak was a retribution meted out by someone in the White House for Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson IV's having giving the lie to the hoax of the forged documents that were floated in Italy in 2002 to make it look as if Iraq had been trying to obtain uranium from Niger. Possible authors of the leak are Lewis Libby and Karl Rove, perhaps with the connivance of Richard Cheney or George W. Bush himself. Although neither Miller nor Cooper penned an article on the leak, it was learned that they had pertinent information, but they have refused to testify on the matter, invoking as journalistic privilege the supposed right to honor the confidentiality promised to their informants. In this case, however, journalistic privilege conflicts with the provisions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment to reveal the true identity of an undercover intelligence agent, like Plame. The justification for the existence of this act lies in the fact that disclosure of such classified information could jeopardize the work or even the life of the agent, as well as that of the agent's assets (contacts) in the US or abroad, as well as prejudice the intelligence effort of the nation as a whole. Though neither Miller nor Cooper personally revealed such information, they may know who did. The US Code at one time recognized certain crimes as "felonies", and also defined a crime known as "misprision of felony", which amounts to failure to report a felony whereof one has personal knowledge. What complicates a misprision-of-felony accusation here is that the section of the code defining "felonies" has been repealed, but the crime "misprision of felony" remains on the books. Anyway, whatever the precise legal status of that latter statute, it is clear that legislative intent was to make failure to report a crime, a crime in itself. And that idea applies here too, in my opinion. The actual charge, however, is contempt of court. Otherwise, an informant could reveal classified information to a whole bevy of reporters, and even if only one actually reported it in the press, the whole bevy could just pretend they didn't know a thing about it. So what would be the value of having certain categories of information classified? What's really at issue here, though, is not the freedom of the press or journalistic privilege. It's the fact that Judith Miller was one of the key figures in promoting the war in Iraq. Receiving bogus information from Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi dissident who headed the Iraqi National Congress, a fictitious organization invented by the Rendon Group, a secretive Washington public-relations firm, Judith Miller wrote a series of defamatory articles for the New York Times. In May, 2004, when the NYT acknowledged that it's promotion of the war was flawed, 12 articles were cited in particular, apologies being offered for the disinformation. Ten of the articles were by Judith Miller. She also co-authored with Laurie Mylroie a venomous book on Iraq called "Saddam and the Crisis in the Gulf." She is the one who reported that some aluminum tubes confiscated in Iraq were to be used for making WMD, which later proved false. She also commandeered, as an embedded reporter, a military unit in Iraq assigned to search for weapons, turning their role into that of a propaganda-gathering mission, according to some writers. Back in 1986, she helped start the invasion of Libya that according to Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mosssad agent, was provoked by a false-flag operation. I described that in my article, "Did Israel Frame Qaddafi in 1986?" In discussing Judith Miller, many writers, whether friendly or hostile to her point of view, ignore one of the main ingredients of her activity. She is an influential Jewish lady devoted to the well-being of Zion and Israel, and has connections with such people as Daniel Pipes, William Kristol, William Safire, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, Zionists all. It's fine for her to be anxious for the safety and security of Israel, but championing a war in which mostly Gentile Americans will die killing Arabs for Israel should not be on the agenda of any American, Jewish or otherwise. If she thinks Israel is so great, let her go write for Maariv. My only disappointment is that she is not being prosecuted for her real crimes, instead of the lesser matter of concealing information on the intelligence leak. But jail time will be good for her, in any case. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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