Jeremy Scahill

Michael Goldfarb's Scurrilous Attack on Rep. Schakowsky and Me. (P.S.: Erik Prince is Not Valerie Plame)

Michael Goldfarb of Bill Kristol’s neconservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, which has engaged in quite a bit of masturbation over how awesome Blackwater is, needs to give Rush Limbaugh back his supply of pharmaceuticals. Goldfarb has posted a story comparing the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the unsubstantiated claim from a Blackwater/Xe/US Training Center spokesperson that Erik Prince is now on an al Qaeda “Most Wanted” list in the aftermath of reporting on the company’s role in the CIA’s assassination program:

Eli Lake and Sarah Carter have a big scoop this morning on news that the CIA “has asked the Justice Department to examine what it regards as the criminal disclosure of a secret program to kill foreign terrorist leaders abroad.” As a result of those leaks, the head of the firm formerly known as Blackwater, Erik Prince, has ended up on an al Qaeda hit list. Given that there is just as much disdain for Prince among left-wing Democrats as there is in the al Qaeda organization, one shouldn’t expect too much concern about this development from those who screamed loudest about the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s identity. But the facts of the crime are eerily similar — with one key difference: this time it looks like the leak came from Congress and not the administration.

This idiotic comparison basically speaks for itself, but let’s be clear: Erik Prince is no Valerie Plame. Plame was a covert CIA operative who was outed because her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, was speaking out against the Bush administration’s lie-filled drive to the Iraq invasion. Prince is the owner of a mercenary force that has killed innocent civilians (mostly Muslims), put US, Iraqi and Afghan lives at risk regularly, is being sued for war crimes, has had its operatives indicted on manslaughter charges, is being investigated for arms smuggling, etc. etc. In other words, Prince and Plame are basically twins.

Prince, whose former employee described him as a man who “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” would not need to be associated with a CIA program to be offensive to any Muslims, sane or not. Prince has done a pretty effective job of creating a reason for people of various faiths or political persuasions to despise him. Moreover, this story about Prince being on an al Qaeda hit list has one source: a spokesperson for Erik Prince (whose name the reporters from the Moonie publication, The Washington Times, whom Goldfarb praises for getting the “big scoop,” misspelled: it is Erik, not Eric).

Goldfarb then acknowledges that he is “not above speculating on just who leaked the information in question. The source is almost certainly a Democratic member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, given the fact that no one knew of this program’s existence until Leon Panetta appeared before that committee and revealed details of the program in June.” He then writes:

“The top candidate there would have to be Jan Schakowsky, the Illinois Democrat whose made the persecution of Blackwater into her own pet cause. Schakowsky has been a key source for Jeremy Scahill, who wrote Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, a full-throttle hit job of the government contractor.

This is a scurrilous allegation about Rep. Schakowsky. In all of the many interviews I have conducted with Rep. Schakowsky, she has gone way out of her way to make clear that she will not, under any circumstances, discuss or reveal any classified information. As for Schakowsky being a “key source” for me, Michael, it is called journalism. Moreover, the fact that Schakowsky has made one of her central foreign policy initiatives holding Blackwater and other “private contractors” accountable should be worn as a badge of pride—especially given Blackwater’s bloody track record and the recent revelations about the despicable (and disgusting) actions of Wackenhut/Armor group “guards” at the US embassy in Kabul. Goldfarb and his pro-mercenary cronies are the ones with egg on their face these days (or, perhaps Goldfarb writes this tripe because he desperately wants to get an invite to the next Wackenhut party outside the embassy in Kabul. Don’t forget the vodka, buddy). “Persecution of Blackwater?” So, when Bush’s Justice Department indicted five Blackwater operatives for manslaughter, was that Bush “persecuting” Blackwater? What about when the US military and the FBI said Blackwater operatives were shooting civilians unprovoked? Goldfarb needs to put away the Goldschläger.

Goldfarb then writes that Rep. Rush Holt is “also in the running” as the leaker. What is the evidence Goldfarb presents? Holt “recently declared “I’d like to see something on the scope of the Church committee.” Oh Lord! Another Church Committee? How terrible it would be to actually get to the bottom of any of the nefarious things that have been done in secret in the name of the American people. To see why a new Church Committee is actually a very good idea, check out my colleague Chris Hayes’s excellent cover story in The Nation, “The Secret Government.”

Finally, Goldfarb writes this:

While the leaking of classified material damaging to America’s war against al Qaeda is a travesty, it does hold forth the delightful possibilty of seeing Reps. Schakowsky and Holt put before a panel of DoJ prosecutors while their core body temperature and heart rate are measured by the polygraph for any signs of lying. The thing about these investigations — like the investigation into the Plame affair — is that you never know who’s going to get caught in a lie.

Rather than respond, I trust readers to fill in the blank in responding to this one. Hint: try using these words: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Black, Krongard, Prince…

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Source: http://rebelreports.com/post/179799722/michael-goldfarbs-scurrilous-attack-on-rep-schakowsky