Leaks Abound as Details Around CIA Sting Operation Surface
By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake
Wednesday May 9, 2012 11:30 am
Anyone that follows how the bulk of defense or national security information becomes known understands much of it comes from what is often referred to as “selective leaking.” Officials that will not put their name to comments or statements talk to the press and provide details on covert drone operations, foiled terror plots, secret activities going on in wars, etc. People in the press, who work for establishment media, win over these “sources.” Their job depends on “selective leaking,” as it is how they get scoops like this scoop about the CIA having an informant. It is why Barbara Starr and Fran Townsend go on TV-to parrot without question the details that were given to them and profess fealty for the national defense and security state of America.
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This is not all that different from what the CIA does when it leaks details about the drone program. Unnamed officials routinely “selectively leak” details on the “covert” program to build support for expanding the program or to reassure the public that the program is not illegal or conducted without restraint. This is done as the CIA argues in court the program is “secret” and they can neither confirm or deny the existence of documents on the program that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups are trying to get released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.Is it acceptable for anyone in government who wishes to show government agencies are doing their job to leak classified information? Is it acceptable for these people to be able to whip the press into a frenzy and get them to provide great PR designed to prop up counterterrorism operations and ensure the fight against al Qaeda continues with certain players at the helm? Is this acceptable while the Obama administration is prosecuting whistleblowers and endangering press freedom to a greater extent than any presidential administration in history because they released classified information without authorization?
As the truth around the CIA’s sting operation surfaces, as we begin to find out how much this is used in counterterrorism operations, the leaking that occurred here should be a part of the discussion too. It should because the six people indicted under the Espionage Act have had their lives wrecked. They have given up security in their careers so that Americans can know the truth about how America “protects” national security. They have been made to pay the price, and people should be appalled that they would have to pay while people who leak so they can get a massive stroke job from the press and public, get to continue along their career paths without being held responsible for doing something that is much more concerning.
US attack kills 5 Afghan kids
Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 10:17 AM EDT
To the extent these type of incidents are discussed at all – and in American establishment media venues, they are most typically ignored – there are certain unbending rules that must be observed in order to retain Seriousness credentials. No matter how many times the U.S. kills innocent people in the world, it never reflects on our national character or that of our leaders. Indeed, none of these incidents convey any meaning at all. They are mere accidents, quasi-acts of nature which contain no moral information (in fact, the NYT article on these civilian deaths, out of nowhere, weirdly mentioned that “in northern Afghanistan, 23 members of a wedding celebration drowned in severe flash flooding” – as though that’s comparable to the U.S.’s dropping bombs on innocent people). We’ve all been trained, like good little soldiers, that the phrase “collateral damage” cleanses and justifies this and washes it all way: yes, it’s quite terrible, but innocent people die in wars; that’s just how it is. It’s all grounded in America’s central religious belief that the country has the right to commit violence anywhere in the world, at any time, for any cause.
At some point – and more than a decade would certainly qualify – the act of continuously killing innocent people, countless children, in the Muslim world most certainly does reflect upon, and even alters, the moral character of a country, especially its leaders. You can’t just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are. That’s particularly true when, as is the case in Afghanistan, the cause of the war is so vague as to be virtually unknowable. It’s woefully inadequate to reflexively dismiss every one of these incidents as the regrettable but meaningless by-product of our national prerogative. But to maintain mainstream credibility, that is exactly how one must speak of our national actions even in these most egregious cases. To suggest any moral culpability, or to argue that continuously killing children in a country we’re occupying is morally indefensible, is a self-marginalizing act, whereby one reveals oneself to be a shrill and unSerious critic, probably even a pacifist. Serious commentators, by definition, recognize and accept that this is merely the inevitable outcome of America’s supreme imperial right, note (at most) some passing regret, and then move on.
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