BenIAM in comments points to a report on Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment in Sudan by the United Nations Environment Programme. Chapter 4 (pdf), recommendable also for its pictures, says:

The scale of historical climate change as recorded
in Northern Darfur is almost unprecedented: the
reduction in rainfall has turned millions of hectares
of already marginal semi-desert grazing land into
desert. The impact of climate change is considered
to be directly related to the conflict in the region, as
desertification has added significantly to the stress
on the livelihoods of pastoralist societies, forcing
them to move south to find pasture.

That seems to be the central point of what the conflict in Darfur and neighboring Chad is about. Millions of people are moving away from land that turned to desert and conflict naturally arises when they ‘invade’ other people’s land. Economic shocks caused by a lack of a rainfall are the major cause (pdf) of civil wars in sub-
Saharan Africa.

Cont. reading: Climate Change Conflicts

October 24, 2007:

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."
link

That was then. Now:

The Senators then voted for "cloture" on the underlying FISA bill — the procedure that allows the Senate to overcome any filibusters — and it passed by a vote of 72-26. Obama voted along with all Republicans for cloture.
link

It is now obvious that the guy is a fraud.

The democratic primaries were looking quite enthusiastic with a record number of voters and plenty of small donations. Obama is doing his very best to change that for the general election. To what end I do not know.

Does he really believe to pick up more voters on the right than he is losing on the left? If so, I think he is wrong.

Prediction: Voter participation in the general election will be at a record low.

Who is to fault for the economic trouble we are in. Are it politicians, economists or structural issues both are unable to influence?

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a former Chief Economist of the World Bank, sees the problems as the effects of a false theory. A theory which is more a political than economic one. In a recommendable piece in an Egyptian(!) paper headlined The end of neo-liberalism? he asserts:

[T]he losers are clear: countries that pursued neo-liberal policies not only lost the growth sweepstakes; when they did grow, the benefits accrued disproportionately to those at the top.

…
Neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience. Learning  this lesson may be the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the global economy.

In  today’s Guardian Simon Jenkins, himself a opinion journalist but also a trained economist with a neo-liberal bent blames economists:

When muck hits fan, economists always blame politicians. They would have some justice if they did not take credit when things go right. I was always uncomfortable at the overselling of economics as a science, when it is rather a branch of psychology, a study of the peculiarities of human nature.

…
Economic management is and always will be about politics, about the clash of needs and demands resolved through the constitutional process.

A third opinion comes in a report by The Australian about a recent Carnegie Council workshop in New York. While it is about the U.S., the central economic position of the U.S. in the world may justify some generalization:

The energy, financial and political woes that grip the US signal a decisive shift in world power, mocking the liberal delusion that Barack Obama or John McCain can return American prestige and power to its pre-Bush year 2000 nirvana. There is no such nirvana. There is instead a new reality: the greatest transfer of income in human history, away from energy importers such as the US to energy exporters; the rise of a new breed of wealthy autocracies that cripple US hopes of dominating the global system; and demands on the US to make fresh compromises in a world where power is rapidly being diversified.
…
For the US there is no easy solution to the structural forces driving
oil, energy and financial markets. Yet much of the political debate
remains in denial of these forces.

Again, who is to blame: Economic theory? Politics? Structural international issues like resources outside of the influence of economists and politicians?

The trained economist in me answers: "On one hand …, but on the other hand …". A politician or opinion maker like Jenkins will favor the say whatever underpins his more conservative or progressive ideological standpoint and blame the opposition.

But who do you think is really to blame? The voters? Idiology?

There are three possible interpretations of Maliki’s insistence for a timetable for withdrawal of some U.S. troops from Iraq. These are based on how one sees Maliki’s position:

He is :

1. a puppet of the U.S. government
2. a puppet of the Iranian government
3. a self nationalistic politician vowing the electorate of Iraq for the upcoming elections

If Maliki gets his orders from the U.S. than the whole timeline issue is a U.S. election ploy. McCain and Bush will accept, reluctantly, the ‘Iraqi wish’ for a timetable. Obama will have lost his most important argument that he is the only one who will end the occupation in Iraq.

If this interpretation is correct the timetable than will be worded in a way that will allow for many troops to stay into the far future and on U.S. conditions.

This is indeed what seems to be going on:

Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite lawmaker and a prominent official in the prime minister’s party, told The Associated Press that Iraq was linking the timetable proposal to the ongoing handover of various provinces to Iraqi control.

The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq’s provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country.

After that, the country’s security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.

So far, the United States has handed control of nine of 18 provinces to Iraqi officials.
<
…
The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timetable and dates for a U.S. withdrawal.

However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.

The second interpretation would be consistent with Maliki’s recent trip to Iran after which he insisted on some issues that are against U.S. interest. He for example demanded to throw the anti-Iranian MEK-cult out of Iraq. The 3,000 or so cult members are currently under U.S. supervision and used for clandestine terror acts in Iran. Maliki also vehemently insisted on no U.S. attacks on Iran from Iraqi soil.

A sign that there might be a real conflict between Maliki and the U.S. came as a threat issued by the White House yesterday:

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said specific withdrawal dates are not part of the talks. He added: "We have great confidence that the political leadership in Iraq would not take an action that would destabilize the country.

Fratto directly threatens to revive the Salvadorian option, i.e. to reignite a civil war in Iraq.

The third interpretation is based on Maliki’s internal political position. While he has had some recent successes in lowering the level of conflict in Iraq he also has only little support in the parliament. A major part of his own Dawa party has split away from him. The timetable for a U.S. retreat is a main demand of the Sadr movement and by picking up on this demand Maliki may try to position himself and his party for the provincial elections as a more secular alternative to as-Sadr. Pat Lang sees such general nationalistic issues as a major force in Maliki’s move.

In reality the three motives above are not inherently incompatible with each other. The Republicans have some interest to move away from McCain’s ‘hundred years in Iraq’ and free some troops for Afghanistan, Iran might want to lower the profile of U.S. troops in Iraq to replace their influence and Maliki might want to present himself as a nationalist not under U.S. control.

We will only be able to judge what motives are really behind this when the results of the negotiations will be announced. If the timetable is very flexible, allows the U.S. to influence it on the go and includes a big residual force, point one is more likely. If the timetable is very strict and allows for no residual force, the Iran point would be the case. A strict timetable with a big residual U.S. force in long term remote bases would fit the Maliki angle as it would give him continued backing against militias as well as make the electorate happy.

News & views …

and a link to the antecessor …

‘The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal,’ a statement from Maliki’s office quoted him as telling Arab ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates.
Iraq demands troop withdrawal timetable in U.S. defence pact talks

"It is important to understand that these are not talks on a hard date for a withdrawal," [White House spokesman Scott Stanzel] said.

"As Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker has said, we are looking at conditions, and not calendars — and both sides are in agreement on this point," [he] said.
…
Asked about Maliki’s comments, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters: "With respect to timetables I would say the same thing I would say as respects to the security situation — it is dependent on conditions on the ground."
White House says no ‘hard date’ for withdrawal in Iraq talks

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s national security adviser said Tuesday his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.
Iraq insists on withdrawal timetable

The big question now: What can and will Cheney do to again get things in Baghdad under control?

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stocks took a dive yesterday. Both are now down 60% from the beginning of this year. These are congressional chartered companies that buy up mortgage loans and finance these through issuing bonds. These bonds have the implicit backing of the United States but it is unclear if this would hold when they default.

Many of the mortgages Freddie and Fanny bought over the last years are of dubious value and it is likely that the companies will lose a lot of money. Both will need fresh capital but I find it hard to see how anyone sane would invest in these. The U.S. taxpayer will have to jump in.

The last days made it clear to anyone that there will be no recovery this year and likely not even next year. The housing market will correct further down and take the country deeper into recession and possibly into a depression.

The whole problem is the result of false economic policies that started with Reagonomics and continued through Democratic and Republican presidencies.

Where is the political answer to this?

Schumer’s housing bill will rescue some of the banks that finance his campaigns but it also puts even more burden on Freddie and Fanny. The rebate checks were used at the gas stations and did not ignite more economic activity. There were already calls for a second round of such checks.

Instead of financing further consumption any future program should put money were it really could induce more economic activities: creating new infrastructure especially for public transit, repairing bridges, changing suburbs into something that resembles towns and the like.

The program will have to be big. It will be a difficult fight to finance it as tax revenues will tank and liabilities  increase further through the wars that will continue to go on.

As the situation will get much worse over the next months, both presidential campaigns will have to present some new programs. McCain’s current economic program of lowering taxes for the rich and corporations while claiming to balance the budget is just laughable. Obama’s current program is much too small and consumption orientated.

The U.S. has structural problems that need structural answers, not some simple tweaking of economic screws here and there.

This chart (stolen from Krugman) shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income. We are back in the gilded age and a new New Deal will be needed.

Could a possibly coming depression trigger the political will to introduce one?

Like on Iraq the British press is used to transport the ‘threat’ of Iran to the English speaking public. This weekend the Telegraph as well as the Times have again excelled at this.

MI6 asset Con Coughlin peddles some scary secret Iranian companies working on parts for even more scary P-2 centrifuges and writes:

The companies, based on the outskirts of Tehran, are working on constructing components for the advanced P2 gas centrifuge, which can enrich uranium to weapons grade two to three times faster than conventional P1 centrifuges.
…
“If Iran’s nuclear intentions were peaceful there would be no need for it to
  undertake this work in secret,” said an official familiar with the intelligence reports.

These ‘secret’ second generation centrifuges are the ones on display at the Iranian president’s website and are producing low-enriched Uranium under the watchful eyes of the IAEA in Natanz.

The Sunday Times joins Coughlin with a renewed scare well known to anyone who watched the propaganda buildup for the war on Iraq: ‘Germ warfare’ fear over African monkeys taken to Iran

Cont. reading: Iran War Drumbeat and the British Press

Maliki and Bush have a big problem. The Iraqi parliament will obviously not agree to the status of force agreement the U.S. is pressing for. But Maliki now thinks he has found an alternative.

Iraq has proposed a short-term memorandum of understanding with the United States rather than trying to hammer through a formal agreement on the presence of U.S. forces, the country’s prime minister said Monday.

…
Al-Maliki has promised in the past to submit a formal agreement with the U.S. to parliament for approval. But the government indicated Monday it may not do so with the memorandum.

"It is up to the Cabinet whether to approve it or sign on it, without going back to the parliament," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told the AP.

Iraq’s al-Maliki wants short-term US agreement

The big issue here is legality. A memorandum of understanding can be a legally binding treaty. But for that they will have to fulfill certain conditions. In this case one of these conditions might well be agreement by the Iraqi parliament.

The Iraqi constitution says in article 58:

A law shall regulate the ratification of international treaties and agreements by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Council of Representatives.

Lawyers in the state and defense department will have serious caveats about an MOU that is not ratified in Iraq. Without a legally binding treaty immunity of all U.S. personal in Iraq would be at risk.

Iraq may also have to pay a hefty price as an memorandum of understanding will not be a binding protection against lawsuits towards Iraqi money in New York fed accounts.

The UN mandate, which today legally covers the occupation, will run out at the end of this year. To renew it seems to be the only legal alternative to a status of force agreement. It is dubious that the Security Council would agree to again prolong the mandate. The U.S. would certainly have to pay a heavy political price to arrange for the votes.

Thanks to anna missed for pointing to this Media Matters report on a brutal case of photo manipulation by Fox News.

With the rise of digital pictures one finds more and more of such manipulation though usually more subtle and in advertising or glamor mag covers. For some hilarious examples take walk through the archives of the Photoshop Disaster blog.

In some reporting on the current presidential elections a much simpler but effective manipulation is used.

The banner in the screenshot below is from the Jerusalem Post coverage of the U.S. election.

The red channel value of the Obama part of the montage is about 30% too low. No professional photographer has such a badly adjusted camera. The manipulation makes Obama’s skin look blue, cold and pale. The McCain part seems to have a slightly lifted red channel value which lets him appear warm.

It is the red versus blue fight played out in rgb spaces and hue curves.

The JPost manipulation is obvious because it is overdone. A 10% red reduction in the Obama part would have been less obvious and still been quite effective. Because such color manipulation is very easy and has a unconscious effect we can be sure that it will be used in many anti-Obama campaigns.

MoA says: "Hmmm, comments!"

News & views … open thread …

July 4th – a day to think about Independence:  Freedom from rule by others.

Many, many nations have suffered through foreign rule. Those who where able to fight against such and won, cherish the date they fought that decisive battle or finally dared to openly declare their freedom. The 4th of July is a very important day for many people.

On the 4th of July 1187 Saladin defeated the crusader King of Jerusalem in the Battle of Hattin:

The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces once again became the eminent military power in the Holy Land, reconquering Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities.

Whoever wants to understand the backgrounds of the struggles going on today in the Middle East needs to read up on Saladin:

Saladin, was a 12th century Kurd who became Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and a major Muslim political and military leader. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid dynasty, which he founded, ruled over Egypt, Syria, Iraq, The Hejaz [Mecca, Medina, Jeddah] and Yemen.

Saladin united the Arab Ummah, successfully fought the crusaders and freed Al-Quds (Jerusalem) from foreign rule. The petty fights of Lebanese fractions or of various groups in Iraq that we discuss today where mere nuances within his great nation.

The United States today practices colonialism despite its own experience as a foreign ruled colony. It cherishes the day it declared freedom from such rule but fights to death any foreign people who want to declare freedom from U.S rule. There is an inherent cognitive dissonance in this which will eventually destroy from the inside the position the U.S. assumes it has in today’s world.

When my friends in the U.S. watch tonight’s fireworks, I hope they will remember that the promise of July 4th is not a singularity, but something that many people in this world fought for relentlessly in ancient times and will fight for and cherish to death today just as everyone ever did.

May all readers here have a happy day of Independence.

The upcoming provincial election in Iraq, late this year or sometime next year, are instigating political shifts and infighting.

The purges against Sadr groups in Basra and Amara have strengthened the
main coalition partner of prime minister Maliki, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), but
not his own position. Maliki’s Dawa party has split into a Dawa- National Reform group headed by former prime minister Jaafari and a rump group still headed by Maliki.

Within the parliament Maliki depends on the support of the ISCI, the main Shia party founded and supported by Iran (an issue major U.S. political commentators are obviously unable to understand.)  There has been trouble between Maliki and ISCI over the still unfinished election law. ISCI wants to use religious symbols in its campaign, while Maliki wants to ban the use of such.

Maliki is now looking for new and additional partners to strengthen his position. He arranged and hopes to get support from a new tribal council, an undemocratic institution also used by Saddam Hussein.

Another step by Maliki is to realign with some Sunni side in the parliament. The Awakening Councils, former Sunni insurgents currently bribed by the U.S. to stay peaceful, are looking for political power. In Ramadi and elsewhere they compete against the Iraqi Islamic Party, mainly former exiles who today govern Anbar province only because most Sunni boycotted the 2005 election.

On the federal level the Iraqi Islamic party is part of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF). There was recent news that the IAF would rejoin the Maliki government. Shortly thereafter Maliki announced that the Awakenings would be dissolved. (U.S. spokesmen Bergner also somewhat called for this.) I assume that this move is part of a deal between Maliki and the IAF.

The tribes that make up the Awakening forces will not agree to a diminished position. They had
hoped for a permanent role. But out of some 90,000 ‘Sons of Iraq’
only 12,000 have been accepted for security service roles. Their firing is likely to renew full-fledged insurgence activity in Anbar province. Some of them are already putting out feelers towards the resistance.

The raids against al-Sadr’s Shia nationalists continue. The governor of Maysan province, was arrested and Sadrist people get purged from their administrative functions. This follows the same scheme seen before in Basra and Amara. An Arab paper writes:

The campaign aims to restructure more than 50% of the police and security leadership and the institutions of the province.

The Sadrists are still in the process of reinventing their military arm. Maliki’s purge of Sadr supporters from local security positions will give them additional experienced forces.

Maliki’s recent moves against the Awakenings and against Sadr are creating two groups of nationalist Iraqis with popular support that are able and willing to fight the occupation forces. It remains to be seen if and how these two groups will unite or at least coordinate their activities.

Neither of North Korea nor Nelson Mandela should ever have ended up on a ‘terrorist list’, a dubious concept in itself. But it is revealing who got priority in delisting.

President George W. Bush announced Thursday the United States would lift some trade sanctions on North Korea and remove the communist nation from its terrorism list, a dramatic move that came after Pyongyang provided long-awaited details of its nuclear program.
North Korea off U.S. terrorist list, June 27, 2008

Officials say Nelson Mandela will be removed from U.S. terrorism watch lists under a new law waiving travel restrictions on the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The measure signed by President George Bush Tuesday authorizes the U.S. State Department to waive travel restrictions on Mandela and other members of the African National Congress who were listed for activities they carried out against South Africa’s apartheid regime decades ago,
Mandela removed from U.S. terrorism list, July 1, 2008

I find such lists and the usually attached sanctions to be tools of either dumb people who are unable to understand another persons point of view, or as nefarious methods of coercion on issues that have zero to do with the stated ‘terrorist’ cause.

As the U.S. Congress (on order from AIPAC) now even sees content neutral satellite TV providers like NileSat and ArabSat as ‘terrorist entities, the last point seems to be the prevalent one.

The UN head Ban Ki-moon has an op-ed in the Washington Post, Globe and Mail and the Guardian pushing the current G8 summit on several issues. One of them is agriculture in Africa. He writes:

Begin with the global food crisis. It has many causes, among them a failure to give agricultural development the importance it deserves. What’s needed, in effect, is a second green revolution of the sort than once transformed south-east Asia, this time with a special focus on small farmers in Africa. With the right mix of programs, there is no reason why productivity cannot be doubled within a relatively short span, easing scarcity worldwide. We’ve seen it happen in Malawi, which with international assistance has gone in a few years from famine to become a food exporter.

Was ‘international assistance’ really the reason Malawi achieved food security and could even export food stuff? No:

Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.

Stung by the humiliation of pleading for charity, he led the way to reinstating and deepening fertilizer subsidies despite a skeptical reception from the United States and Britain.
…
The United States, which has shipped $147 million worth of American food to Malawi as emergency relief since 2002, but only $53 million to help Malawi grow its own food, has not provided any financial support for the subsidy program, except for helping pay for the evaluation of it. Over the years, the United States Agency for International Development has focused on promoting the role of the private sector in delivering fertilizer and seed, and saw subsidies as undermining that effort.

So the point Ban Ki-moon is making is a false one. The Malawi government took the right step by ignoring ‘international assistance’ and doing what was the best for its people.

Of course subsidies are inherently problematic as they always come with some corruption. People acquire cheap subsidized fertilizer and sell it to a neighboring country for a 100% profit. Better government control could prevent most of that. In many cases targeted subsidies are a much better policy than to follow the free market advise the usual suspects always try to press upon nations in trouble.

But why is Ban Ki-moon writing this? Is he ill informed and really believes that ‘international assistance’ helped Malawi, or is he, in a twisted way, telling the G8 to stop their free market peddling?

I for one suspect the first to be the case but hope for the second. What is your take?

Will this create some outrage?

GARY, Indiana –  A new program launched in Gary’s schools has the expressed purpose of preventing black girls from becoming romantically involved with white Americans.

The program enjoys the support of the municipality and the police, and is headed by Gary’s welfare representative, who goes to schools to warn girls of the "exploitative whites."

The program uses a video entitled "Sleeping with the Enemy," which features a local police officer and a woman from the Anti-Assimilation Department, a wing of the religious organization Black Beauty, which works to prevent black girls from dating white men.
link

The accounts Andrew Cockburn’s reporting and Seymour Hersh’s on Bush’s finding for a silent war on Iran differ. While Hersh asserts that the U.S. forces would only use ‘defensive lethal force’ Cockburn wrote:

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials.

We may now be able to judge who is right in this:

An Iranian navy commander leading a unit that arrested 15 UK sailors in the Persian Gulf last year has survived an assassination attempt.
…
Two groups of unidentified assailants, a group on a motorbike and the other in a car, opened fire on the vehicle of the Iranian commander.

Amangah pulled his car over, took shelter, and managed to escape unhurt.

The man, decorated for his raid on British sailors in disputed waters, is certainly a target the Bush administration would really like to hit.

There is also new trouble coming from the allegedly U.S. funded Jundullah group, a Baloch militant Sunni group that attacks Iran from its area in southwest Pakistan. Two weeks ago the group abducted 16 Iranian policemen and according to Al-Arabia killed four of them.

Also two weeks ago, coming from north Iraq, the Kurdish anti-Iranian group PJAK ambushed and killed 3 Iranian policemen.

One wonders how long Iran will take such casualties before it decides to silently hit back at the force behind these. Especially a successful hit on a high ranking Iranian politician or military leader might easily lead to some serious casualties in the upper ranks of the U.S. officer corps stationed in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

One wonders how these officers feel about Bush’s not so silent war against Iran.

Emptywheel muses about a piece in to day’s WaPo that says:

A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.

…
The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Key details of his claim have not been made public because they describe events the CIA deems secret.

…
"On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all," [his attorney, Roy] Krieger said in an interview.

In court documents and in statements by his attorney, the former officer contends that his 22-year CIA career collapsed after he questioned CIA doctrine about the nuclear programs of Iraq and Iran. As a native of the Middle East and a fluent speaker of both Farsi and Arabic, he had been assigned undercover work in the Persian Gulf region, where he successfully recruited an informant with access to sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear program, Krieger said.

While the court case refers to Jerry Doe, a male person, doesn’t the same story also fit to Valerie Plame?

She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed. . . ." CBS has confirmed that part of her work involved ensuring that Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons.

Part of her work during this time, according to David Corn and Michael Isikoff, appears to have been concerned with determining the use of aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq. CIA analysts prior to the Iraq invasion were quoted by the White House as believing that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear weapons and that these aluminum tubes could be used in a centrifuge for nuclear enrichment but Isikoff and Corn argue that the undercover work being done by Mrs. Wilson and her CIA colleagues in the Directorate of Central Intelligence Nonproliferation Center strongly contradicted such a claim.

Some quotes in the WaPo do not fit a female person. That may be intended and Jerry Doe may indeed be Valerie Plame. Another possibility is that ‘Jerry Doe’ was part of the same team Plame belonged to and fired for the same reason Valerie Plame was exposed. The time-frame and the stories fit very well.

Another observation on this is that any Intelligence Service should never have a ‘doctrine’, an inherently political position, but only serve as a neutral source of information. Not that the CIA has ever been a political neutral service. But to be useful it should be such.