Valerie Plame, the former CIA analyst and a covert officer who was at the center of a President George W. Bush-era scandal, is in trouble again. According to the Hill, she tweeted an article in the Unz Review entitled “America’s Jews are Driving America’s Wars.” The resulting firestorm on social media was as instant as it was predictable. The article was written by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism officer who is a frequent critic of Israel and American Jews.
Plame has expressed admiration for Giraldi in the past.
Who is Valerie Plame and why does it matter?
Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA officer was revealed in a 2003 article by Robert Novak, based on a leak by Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State. The outing of Plame’s status became a scandal that touched the State Department and Vice President Dick Cheney. Opponents of President Bush’s war in Iraq claimed that the unmasking of Plame as a covert officer had been done in retaliation for her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s claim that the administration had manipulated intelligence to justify going to war.
The claim was never proven. Nevertheless, Plame’s plight became a cause celebre. She was painted as a victim of the Bush White House. The story even became a Hollywood movie called “Fair Game” starring Naomi Watts as Plame.
Why was the article so obnoxious?
The article that Plame tweeted and, at least initially, endorsed relates an old anti-Semitic trope that American Jews in the media and the government conspired with Israel to get the United States involved in wars in the Middle East. People who hold with this conspiracy theory are particularly incensed at the idea that Iran is a threat because of its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. They believe that the fear of Iranian nukes is illegitimate because Israel is directly threatened.
That the United States might also be threatened by nuclear arms in the hands of a regime that was sworn to destroy it has not occurred to people who believe in a vast Jewish conspiracy. In any case, the idea that America should be concerned for the wellbeing of a loyal ally also does not occur to them.
Valerie Plame is tainted
Plame, the darling of the left during the Bush years, has some explaining to do. She doubled down on the article at first when challenged. However, Plame finally backed off and claimed that she had only skimmed the piece and not recognized its anti-Semitic attributes, despite the title. Plame is now forever tainted with the stench of the bigotry the article represented, even though she claims to be of Jewish ancestry.