Summary: Choice of focus has an effect on your world, and is under your control.
Gruss Gott wrote: > ''What has suffered irreversible damage is the credibility of our case > officers when they try to convince an overseas contact that their > safety is of primary importance to us," said Jim Marcinkowski, a > former CIA case officer. I'd agree with the potential for such damage, but not directly from any conversation I've ever seen reported, or even alleged. The potential damage described above comes from media publicity campaigns for the idea that agents aren't safe -- the problem is caused by the perception, not the reality. This is similar to last season's murderous riots caused by the "koran desecration" campaign, launched by Newsweek and picked up by the other corporate news sources -- the US military took far more care of those books than you do at Border's, and the inquiry did show multiple desecrations, but from the detained warfield combatants! Those real deaths occurred as a result of badly-told stories. It's also related to media's massive over-exposure of the name "Valerie Plame", of course. Whether she or other agents (either homebound office analysts like Plame, or the actual agents assassinated through Philip Agee's treachery) are or are not safe as a result of Plame-ish conversations is hardly caused by the miniscule readership that Robert Novak may enjoy. The reluctance to acknowledge such hypocrisy is most startling. In some ways, reality is a self-fulfilling dream. The stories told in commercial media affect peoples' lives. It would be useful if those stories were accurate and amenable to correction. They should also be useful, because the over-emphasis on Plame, Wilson, Clarke and each of the other monthly campaign themes takes away from true stories, such as the lynchings of gays in Iran last week. The oppressed need our attention. When you look into it, it's really remarkable how much human time has been wasted through these Plame stories. The stories themselves kill less human time than assassination would, be it's more a difference of degree than of kind. jd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:166396 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
