THE ROGUE WEASELS CLUB

How upset are you over the CIA “secret prison scandal”? Maybe you said, “What scandal?”, or maybe you’ve glanced at stories about it carried in the back pages of your newspaper. Here in Europe, it’s the giant screaming front page headline story on every paper you pick up from England to Germany.

The Europeans are in a state of high emotional froth over CIA “renditions” of Moslem terrorists seized in one of their countries and taken to a “secret prison” in Poland or elsewhere. The Euroweenies are far more concerned with the “human rights” of the terrorists than they are about the threat of terrorists to kill them.

If you think all of this is just an excuse to bash the CIA and indulge in anti-Americanism, you’re right – just as planned by the weasels.

Everyone on the right, it seems nowadays, from the editorials in the Wall Street Journal to conservative columnists like Mona Charen and bloggers like John Hinderacker, are issuing calls to “Investigate the CIA!” They have been suckered by the left.

They should instead be demanding, “Investigate the weasels, not the agency!” All of them have been accusing the CIA of conducting a covert war against the Bush Administration by leaking damaging classified information to leftwing journalists in the press. That the most damaging leak of all to date, the “secret prisons” story leaked to the Washington Post, is incredibly damaging to the CIA itself has not given them pause.

Why would the CIA conduct a covert war against itself? Because the agency is now being run by an ally of George Bush who is trying to root out left wing “rogue weasels” from its midst: Porter Goss.

You could call it, as some of the good guys at Langley are starting to, the Rogue Weasel Club. According to one member of the intel community, its members include:

*Recently retired officials who are active in, or advising, all the Congressional investigative activities that have so crippled and mangled the reform of the intelligence community.

*Current CIA officials who have migrated to other intelligence agencies within the community. Individuals of special concern should include current FBI officials and analysts who have ties to and sympathy with targets of Goss’ house cleaning.

The club is being assisted by members of Congress, their staff, and the media in operating what amounts to a shadow intelligence community in opposition to the elected Republican Legislative and Executive branches of our government during a time of war.

This intel individual concludes: “The Rogue Weasel Club operating with immunity as they sabotage and ‘stick the knife’ into the backs of their former co-workers who are faithfully attempting to carry out the oaths that they took when they signed up.”

And so it is time to name names. The following are signees to a letter addressed to John McCain in support of his campaign against “torture.” (It’s in quotes because there already are such laws, and everyone knows McCain is indulging in his usual petulant grandstanding.)

By affixing their names to the McCain letter, they came out of the cold and announced themselves as members of the Rogue Weasel Club. They are waging a covert, and increasingly overt, war against the Bush Administration and Porter Goss’s CIA.

This is the cabal of leftwing spooks Bush and Goss are up against, who are purposefully damaging the president with leaks to the press and folks in Congress who wish them ill. One of them is the culprit who leaked the “secret prison” story to John McCain, who in turn leaked it to the Washington Post.

They are the ones who should be investigated – and it’s about time conservative critics of the CIA figured it out.

Signees to letter to Senator John McCain, December 9, 2005:

ROBERT BAER, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
VINCENT CANNISTRARO, former director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center
KATHLEEN CHRISTISON, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
WILLIAM CHRISTISON, former National Intelligence Officer and Director, Office of Regional & Political Analysis, CIA
RICHARD CLARKE, former advisor, National Security Council
RAY CLOSE, former Chief of Station Officer, CIA
VICKI DIVOLL, former Assistant General Counsel, CIA
GRAHAM FULLER, former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, CIA
MELVIN A. GOODMAN, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
PHILIP GIRALDI, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
MICHAEL GRIMALDI, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
RALPH M. HOCKLEY, Col. USA (ret), former intelligence officer
ARTHUR S. HULNICK, former intelligence officer, US Air Force, former CIA
LARRY C. JOHNSON, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
EDWARD R. M. KANE, former Chief of Station, CIA
CAMERON LA CLAIR, former Executive Officer of Area Division, CIA
W. PATRICK LANG, Col. USA (ret), Chief of DIA Middle East Division, Director Defense Humint Services
LYNNE A. LARKIN, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
DAVID MACMICHAEL, former National Intelligence Council officer, CIA
TOM MAERTENS, former analyst, Intelligence and Research, Department of State
EUGENE A. MANNING, former Analyst, Office of National Estimates, Directorate of Intelligence, and Counterintelligence Center, CIA
JAMES MARCINKOWSKI, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
JOHN E. MARSH, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
RICHARD MCDERMOTT, former Army Counterintelligence Special Agent
RAY MCGOVERN, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
DAVID RUPP, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA
GARETH A. SHELLMAN, former intelligence analyst, U.S. Army Security Agency
JOHN P. SONTAG, former intelligence analyst, CIA and Department of State
LEWIS R. SORLEY, former Director, National Intelligence Emergency Support Office, CIA
ROBERT DAVID STEELE VIVAS, former clandestine officer, CIA
STANSFIELD TURNER, former Director of Central Intelligence
AMB. (RET) PHILIP C. WILCOX, JR., former Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism at Department of State
AUSTIN YAMADA, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism