Call It Treason

The Bushite administration has committed numerous crimes against humanity, by torturing and bombing. It is in the process of committing murder on the largest scale imaginable: it is murdering the planet with its obstinate refusal to act on, or even recognize the reality of the Climate Crisis which unchecked will likely mean the end of the living earth as we know it.

It has committed numerous crimes against many if not most Americans, in deference to the uber-wealthy few. It has shown its non-election-year contempt for the least powerful in its blithe ignoring of New Orleans during Katrina.

It lied the nation into a war, spilling blood and bleeding treasure, transforming the largest federal surplus into the largest federal debt, which turns over the fate of present and future generations to foreign powers to whom the nation now owes incredible sums. In the process it has given away taxpayers' money to a select group of cronies and crony corporations, while failing to deliver the results promised for the American people.

It has shown no mercy or even decency, Christian or otherwise, in attacks on opponents, using vicious lies even on people who were allies a blink of an eye before.

It has defied the Constitution and the laws of the land with impunity in ways both large and small. It has attempted to justify or at least worm out of every evil it has perpetrated, large and small, including the illegal outing of a CIA agent.

Now it is becoming clearer that the consequences of this particular act, the outing of agent Valerie Plame for a pique of sheer political revenge, has endangered national security and a region of the world long the most likely place where major warfare would begin that could engulf the globe.

It's well known now that Valerie Plame was working for the CIA on investigating nuclear weapons proliferation. It is now being reported that she and her team were looking into the nuclear program in Iran, and that her outing seriously disrupted the ability of American intelligence to learn what Iran is actually up to. This is being reported just as crisis is approaching, and the Bushites seem incredibly to be pushing for another war.

At the moment it is the alternative Raw Story that carries this story, but if it erupts into the pages of a major newspaper---either through investigative reporting or because, as some have been saying, Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation has led him to this finding---it becomes no longer a technical violation of statutes, but a measurable act of treason, with real world consequences.

This act of treason could wind up costing many lives. This act implicates many people in the Bushite White House, up to and including vice president Cheney, with the culpability of the president unknown at this time.

For all of their crimes and errors, and despite the very low standing the Big Smirk and Dead-Eye Dickhead have in the polls, the Bushites have survived by dint of congressional majorities and news media more interested in maintaining their profit margins from huge campaign spending (which Republicans support) than anything else. They may even survive the Fitzgerald investigation---Karl Rove for one is acting increasingly like he knows he is not going to be indicted.

But there may yet be a reckoning, and it could come as swiftly as lightning. But it must be a legitimate and legal fall, for cause. If there is not, the future doesn't have a chance. Not even the slim one it has if the Bushites are stopped before they do further damage.

MONDAY UPDATE: Celebrate President's Day with this post from Jane Smiley, on the next step in the Bushite dictatorship: going naked.

And for a cogent update on the unfolding NSA spy story, and efforts in Congress to investigate/justify it.