Woman, Thy Name is Scapegoat

PUNISHED
Valerie Plame
Judith Miller
General Janis Karpinski
Mary O. McCarthy

Valerie Plame lost her ability to perform her CIA job when the Administration blew her cover. Although the release of that information was in response to an article her husband had written, she was the one that lost her career.

Judith Miller learned about the Valerie Plame outing. She went to jail rather than reveal Scooter Libby as her story source. No member of the Executive Branch tried to help her--yet we now know that (supposedly) President Bush ‘declassified’ that information before it was leaked.

General Janis Karpinski was the highest ranking woman in Iraq. In charge of many prisons, including Abu Ghraib, she was the only high-ranking officer punished and demoted. Despite the complicity of her superiors with military intelligence and outside contractors (in the treatment of the prisoners), she was chosen to ‘take the fall’.

Last Friday, Mary O. McCarthy of the CIA was the latest woman to join the scapegoat club. She is purported to have revealed the information about our government’s secret prisons on foreign soil. Created to avoid our laws against torturing prisoners, these convenient locations allowed the Administration’s love of torture to continue without accountability.

After a lifetime of government service, Ms. McCarthy was fired one week before her day of retirement.

Senator John Kerry recognized the irony.
"Classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people." You have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly
telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in
Washington.” (ABC This Week)

From scandals at Abu Ghraib to lies about WMD men and women have died due to this President’s (and his minions) manipulations and incompetence. Civilians died on 9/11, military and civilians suffered deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their malfeasance regarding Hurricane Katrina continues to reveal their uncaring attitude toward their fellow Americans.

Our international reputation has been shattered, our moral power in the world diminished. Who doesn’t laugh out loud today when someone in the Administration demands that some other country stop their human rights violations? Who doesn’t
cringe daily as more and more ismrevealed about our government spying on its own citizens without court orders? Who isn’t mortified that the Constitution is mocked every time a‘sneak and peek” search takes place?

They hide behind the skirts ofa ‘war on terror’. Yet it has been perpetuated and increased by our ownactions (invading Iraq and Afghanistan) and inactions (not catching Bin Laden). The President and his followers have encouraged crimes and misdemeanors that are ripping apart the foundations of our national identity.

Mr. Divider pretending to be a Uniter will go down in history as the worst President ever. [If we manage to survive enough to have a history based on any part of the truth.

Never mind that this Administration is famous for classifying everything, no matter how mundane. Or that the President ‘unclassified’ much more sensitive information for political purposes when he allowed Valerie Plame to be outed. (Remember he has now admitted using this false information about the attempted yellow-cake purchase to build a case forgoing to war in Iraq.) Never mind that the story of secret foreign prisons operated by the CIA was so important that its
author, Dana Priest, won a Pulitzer Prize. Never mind that there have been many other leaks and no arrests. Another woman becomes the scapegoat. After a lifetime of service to her country.

And the men? Their words, actions and behaviors all caused much more damage. Yet none have been held accountable. None have suffered the public humiliation that these women have endured.

JUST A FEW MEN THAT WERE NEVER PUNISHED

OR HELD ACCOUNTABLE

Osama Bin Laden (9/11, Al Qaidah)
Karl Bremer (Post-war Iraq malfeasance)
George W. Bush (WMD, NSA, FISA,Iraq War)
Richard Cheney (WMD, NSA, FISA, Iraq War)
Michael Chertoff (Hurricane Katrina)
Scooter Libby (Valerie Plame, Lied to Grand Jury)
Robert Novak (Wrote article outing Valerie Plame)
Colin Powell (Lied to the world at the U. N.)
Karl Rove (Everything nasty and wrong has his name on it)
Donald Rumsfeld (Terrible job on Iraq war)
George Tenet (Gave Bush the lie on WMD ("It's a slam dunk Mr. President)
Paul Wolfowitz (Convinced Bush to ignore the military on how to operate the war, one of those who helped create the war)
Bob Woodward (Sold out his journalistic integrity to Bush and operated as a media pundit trying to destroy Plame's reputation when she was outed.)

President George W. Bush likes to point to Karen Hughes and Condaleeza Rice to prove his love and respect for women. In truth, he is doing what he does best. Holding them up as a shield. While everyone is focused on his shiny examples, he is destroying the rest behind them.

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Information Sources

Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12466719/site/newsweek/

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/washington/22leak.html?ei=5065&en=126c3f48aea48e3f&ex=1146283200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/3811424.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/24/MNGK9IE2K51.DTL