Thursday, April 21, 2011

Movie Recommendation: Fair Game

Recently I watched "Fair Game," a movie about Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson.

Valerie Plame Wilson was an undercover CIA operative. British and Italian Intelligence had reported that the African country Niger had an agreement with Saddam Hussein to ship significant quantities of uranium to Iraq. Joe Wilson, a former ambassador to several African countries and acting ambassador to Iraq in 1990, was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate this claim in 2002. He reported that it was highly unlikely anything was going on.

In his January 2003, State of the Union address, President Bush said, "“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

On March 19, 2003, the President announced the start of the War in Iraq, claiming its purpose is “to disarm Iraq , to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

On July 6, 2003, "What I didn’t find in Africa," an op-ed by Joe Wilson, was published in The New York Times., In it, Wilson identified himself and wrote, “I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq 's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat"

In a July 14, 2003 column titled "Mission to Niger" in the Chicago Sun-Times, Robert Novak wrote, “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson 's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him.”

Leaking to the press the name of a CIA operative is illegal. Eventually Scooter Libby, Vice-President Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators in the probe of the leak. He was sentenced to a 30-month prison term. The prison term was later commuted by President Bush. He was, however, not pardoned.

These are some of the essential facts of the story. The conflict is intense and the stakes, for everyone, are very high.

My favorite movie is "The Insider" which tells the story of how Jeffrey Wigand brought down big tobacco. Again, the conflict is intense and the stakes, for everyone, are very high.

Sean Penn portrays Joe Wilson and Naomi Watts portrays Valerie Plame Wilson. They do a superb job. I rarely watch a movie with the "commentary" turned on. However, in this case Joe and Valerie Wilson do the commentary. The backstory they supply is fascinating.

This story has been thoroughly covered in the press. FactCheck.Org does an excellent job of reporting the essential facts and providing hyperlinks to the sources it cites.
http://www.factcheck.org/article337.html

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Book recommendation

I recently finished listening to "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement" by David Brooks. It was one of the most interesting and thought provoking books I have ever read. Though I disagree with Brooks on many of his political views, I cannot fault the research, creativity, and inspired writing that went into this work.
Brooks has spent years researching the role and effect of what he calls the non-cognitive functions of the human mind. We may think our thinking is what makes us do what we do, but, in fact, more often than not, it is our assessments and responses on a level outside of our awareness that most shape our behavior. Above all, we are a social animal and our emotional connections and responses to one another and the groups we belong to and identify with affect our behavior in expected and unexpected ways.

I highly recommend this book. It's so provocative, I'm going to listen to it again and I may even buy a hard copy just for ease of reference.