1 It's morally reprehensible that these people will gleefully reveal information that could put lives or their country in danger, but have no problem with someone being charged with a crime for revealing information about an Apple product hasn't been released yet. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

2 Oyster, Perhaps you have heard of Valerie Plame? A deep-undercover CIA agent who outted/exposed/cover blown by the Bush Administration(aka Karl Rove). Her job was tracking WMD and the material used to make them. After she was outted the US's ability to track WMD was greatly reduced. Some info can be found at: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/valerie_plame.htm http://foi.missouri.edu/iipa/ciaofficials.html Googling her name will also turn up more. ~~~~ The "authors of the NYT story" links to a blog posting about the Quran getting pee'd on in gitmo. ~~~~ For those of you that didn't RTFA, here is the first paragraph. "A recent article by Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams in the New York Times revealed the use of aircraft charter companies by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, together with specific aircraft markings, bases, routes, and other information helpful to identification of such flights." First off the information "exposed" was already publicly available. The aircraft registration is gotten by simply watching aircraft at various airfield and checking tower control logs. Maybe if the CIA put a little more effort into hiding, like making sure the registration actually matched the aircraft. One example I know of had a helicopter registration numbers on the tail of citation jet. Geee, who do we know who can put false/incorrect aircraft numbers on a tail? Second the companies tied to the aircraft registration are disposable. Just something used to fill in the blanks on the bogus aircraft registration. Not part of a *deep cover* operation like Valerie Plame's cover company was, which also happen to be blown when her cover was blown. And finally the most important point, what the CIA was/is using those aircraft for is just plain wrong. The aircraft are being used for Renditions aka grab people up, fly them to "bumfuck egpyt" and torture them. Yes, it turns out this has been happening since at least Bush 41. But it is still wrong. A little thing called "Innocent until proven guilty". All of the information about the CIA planes used for this has been circulating the 'net for at least a year. Hell, 60 Minutes did a story on it a couple of months back. The NY Times article is just a case of the mainstream media catching up. One might consider it a "whistler-blower" article. The article completely glosses over the "third moviation". From the article: "A third motivation could have been that the article "outed" some violation of US law that the general public ought to know about and call to redress. No contravention of the law of the land is claimed to have taken place, so there is no justification for this hypothesis." Hmmm, grabbing up people and flying them off to be torture isn't against US Law? The NY Times article makes mention of two inquiries by Itay and Sweden in the pratice. And remembering that Treaties signed by the USA become part of US Law, I would hazard to guess CIA Renditions are in a seriously grey, if not illegal area. No? So, you're ok if the CIA nabs your son/daughter, flies them off to be tortured and later finds out it made a mistake and drops your son/daughter off in Romania. Bah humbug

3 Puzzled - You just put an awful lot of words in my mouth and missed my point entirely in the process. One thing you're forgetting (or maybe don't know) is that these people being flown away are being sent back to their country of origin. Let's say "insurgent A" is picked up in Iraq with a group who have been shooting at innocent people, coalition troops or anyone for that matter, and it is found he is from Egypt. They just take him back to Egypt. They're not picking up Syrians and sending them to Uzbekistan. You may have a problem with that. I don't give a shit. If these people are afraid of being tortured, there are many ways in which they can seek asylum and it doesn't take a mental giant to know that shooting at coalition troops or killing innocent people is not the way. There are a ton of idiots in Iraq right now fighting on behalf of the Baathists or al Qaeda or half a dozen other terrorist organizations whose only purpose is to fight for the fascists and commiting crimes against legitimate Iraqi citizens. They're *not* Iraqi citizens and have no other purpose for being there. *They're* the invaders. Get it? *They're* the occupiers. My son or daughter are from the US. They are not in another country wreaking havoc or anything remotely like that. If I were "insurgent A's" mother, I would be sad, but if I had a shred of common sense I'd know that what he was doing was wrong, very wrong. I won't bother explaining more to you since you've already grabbed up all the moral high ground here. And what the hell does Valerie Plame have to do with my first comment? My idea with that is this: When does the media become complicit in that instance? If a "senior" official leaked that information about her, they've broken a very serious law. By not revealing their identity, the media becomes complicit in a crime too. All in the name of "getting a story". Bah humbug, indeed.

4 I posted "Journalists Targeting Spies" on May 31, with the suggestions that: 1.) The NY Times is indeed looking to the destruction of the nation and 2.) Perhaps they are looking to the time when Hellery is President and and can become her personal Al Jazeera. The authors may be human-I don't have the DNA-but they certainly have no human end in mind.

5 Does anyone ever wish they could just step off this planet and leave it to the morons at the NYT and the rest who, apparently, wish for the end of the US and think Zarqawi is a swell, misunderstood guy? I wish I could grant them their vision, if only for a moment, just so I could hear them say thank you to all my friends and relatives who've been invovled in the defence of this country from WWII to the present. Are these people human? Yes. Are they Americans? By birth, perhaps. Their philosphy shows them to be anything but American in their hearts. If one does something detrimental to the interests of the US, does that make the person an enemy of the US? If that person is indeed an enemy, do those who've taken an oath to defend the US against enemies "both foreign and internal" have an obligation to take action against that person? If so, what action would be appropriate? Just a thought.

6 No Saney, I just wish that we had true justice instead of law sometimes, so that traitors like everyone at NYT could be hanged from the windows of their own offices. Of course, though, we are a nation of laws, and it is not a deficiency in the law that allows traitors to live, but a deficiency in these entrusted to enforce those laws, and a deficiency in We, the People, for allowing it to continue. Treason continues because we tolerate it, and we tolerate it because we have become used to it through constant contact. Our enemies do not all wear masks and suicide vests, nor do they all pray five times a day. Many of them live among us and empathize with our enemies because they hate our country and they hate us, and they think that if only they can destroy the existing system, they can emplace one of their own design, even if it means working with murdering terrorists. In the past, they were willing to sell us out to the Soviets for the same purpose, so nothing has really changed in their game plan, only a few players have been replaced. Lenin called them "useful idiots" because they were willing to betray their own country for an ideology that would ultimately enslave and destroy them, and apparently the jihadis understand how to put them to good use as well.

7 Puzzled, your claims about Valerie Plame are completely false. She was not a "deep undercover" agent. And the revelation of her name did nothing to reduce our ability to track WMD's as she was not a field agent at the time.

8 Exactly, SPQR. What did she and hubby, Joe Wilson, do right afterwards? They went on speaking tours and touting his book. She couldn't have had much to fear. It doesn't mean that it was right to "out" her, but the media was just as wrong in shouting her name to the world as the person was who gave them the information. You know, if she hadn't played a role in getting Joe the diplomatic position he screwed up so bad, a lot of this could have been avoided. That's what kills me about people like "puzzled" (now I know where he got his name) They're only critical to a point. As soon as they get to the point where facts start getting in the way of their indignation, that's where they stop.