Introduction Today, I read one of the screwiest New York Times articles I have read in a while. And since the newspaper of record produces some flaky stories that is saying a lot. One of the guys on their CIA Bashing Beat, Scott Shane ignored the objections of a former CIA agent turned CIA contractor (he used to be an interrogator) as well as the objections of the current CIA head in order to write an incredibly inane bit of fluff that no one would call cutting edge journalism. There is nothing important in the article. No new information is disclosed.
This story did not have to be told. Since it is a character sketch told as hearsay, it is also bad journalism.
Why was it written? Shane is not starved for sources. He has plenty of credits under his name. Why did he have to write about this particular employee of the CIA, giving his full name, describing the roll he played in the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?
A kind interpretation would be that Shane is writing in defense of the Geneva Conventions. He is advocating an end to torture, since the former CIA agent and current contract employee whom he describes did not use torture himself. However, the text does not bear this theory out. Instead, Shame describes his subject, Martinez, as complicit in torture if not a hands on participant:
He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called “knuckledraggers.”
Mr. Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mr. Mohammed that astonished his fellow C.I.A. officers.
Good cop, bad cop? That is not a nice portrait at all. That is the kind of characterization that could get Martinez or his family in serious trouble if they traveled outside the U.S. Maybe even killed.
What is the real purpose of this story?
I. Background: The NeoCons are at War with the CIA and the NYTs is One of their Allies First, for some background please review one of my journals
“The CIA is enemy territory": Paul Wolfowitz Againt U.S. Intelligence in which I make the case that the NeoCons outed Valerie Plame as part of an ongoing feud with the agency that has refused to provide them with justification for either the invasion of Iraq or Iran.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2460895&mesg_id=2460895I also believe that the NeoCons were the source the leak about the destroyed torture tapes, which came on the heels of the CIA’s Iran NIE, the one that declared that there is absolutely no reason for us to invade Iran. I called this two part series of journals which I wrote “Smoke in Our Eyes” Here are the links.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2430332&mesg_id=2430332http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2434544&mesg_id=2434544In the first journal, I speculated that the
Two Torture Tapes story originated in the office of the Vice President and that it was a set up so that the right wing could denounce the CIA as untrustworthy---which would allow it to dismiss the Iran NIE as not worthy of notice. Note that in my second journal I show how both the NeoCon NYT and the NeoCon WaPo wrote the editorials I predicted---as if the newspapers had coordinated their messages with the WH. Condemn the CIA as liars and cheats who torture and then engage in cover ups after the fact, and you can discredit anything that they say and do, never mind that the Iran NIE came from a new CIA under new leadership. Also note that in the first journal I predicted that the administration would attempt to prevent Congressional investigation and cover its own ass regarding torture (since the two torture tapes story would also dirty the WH) by seeking to implicate Democrats, making it a bipartisan scandal. The WaPo did this with their infamous
Pelosi Knew headline.
The NYTs (including writer Scott Shane) have been pushing the CIA/Two Torture Tapes story ever since--at the same time that they have been pounding the drums to war with Iran.
II. The NYTs Identifies A CIA Ex-Employee and Current Contractor By Name Over His Objections---Shades of Valerie Plame This article is really something.
Inside a 9/11 Mastermind’s Interrogation by Scott Shane
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.htmlNot the substance of the article. Basically, we have “The CIA tortured some guy who was a known Al Qaeda terrorist leader but they had more luck when they tried winning his trust.” Wow. What a no brainer.
This is the part that made my jaw drop.
Mr. Martinez declined to be interviewed; his role was described by colleagues. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A., and a lawyer representing Mr. Martinez asked that he not be named in this article, saying that the former interrogator believed that the use of his name would invade his privacy and might jeopardize his safety. The New York Times, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked undercover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news articles and books, declined the request. (An editors’ note on this issue has been posted on The Times’s Web site.)
Okaaa…
Here is what it says on the web site.
http://nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/web22ksmnote.html The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of Deuce Martinez, an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify Mr. Martinez would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency.
After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr. Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article.
The Times’s policy is to withhold the name of a news subject only very rarely, most often in the case of victims of sexual assault or intelligence officers operating under cover.
Mr. Martinez, a career analyst at the agency until his retirement a few years ago, did not directly participate in waterboarding or other harsh interrogation methods that critics describe as torture and, in fact, turned down an offer to be trained in such tactics.
The newspaper seriously considered the requests from Mr. Martinez and the agency. But in view of the experience of other government employees who have been named publicly in books and published articles or who have themselves chosen to go public, the newspaper made the decision to print the name.
WTF? Let me see if I have this right. Because Mr. Martinez decided
not to participate in waterboarding, the NYT is going to punish him by making it impossible for him or his family to travel in half of the free world for the rest of their lives, and it will paint them as war criminals so that their friends and neighbors never look at them the same. As I point out in the introduction, Shane portrays Martinez as being in collusion with those who tortured Mohammed with his good cop/bad cop analogy. That makes him guilty in a moral sense---that is how Al Qaeda is going to see him. Guilty. That is how many Americans will see him. Guilty. So much for the argument about only protecting the identities of those who physically administered torture. People like Martinez will have their names splashed across the pages of the NYTs, at the whim of its writers and editors
based upon the word of people whose identities the NYT protects. Note that Shane does not identify any of the witnesses against Martinez.
Here is another problem with the NYT's argument. It claims that it has to name Martinez for the
credibility and completeness of the article . Hello? Earth to NYTs. If you care so much about credibility, why does Shane repeatedly refer to
anonymous sources within the CIA and intelligence community who describe Martinez and his work for the CIA and his character and their guesses as to the inner workings of his mind? If Shane has no problem naming a man who asked not be written about, surely he can name the sources who spoke on the record about a man who did not want to be written about. Were there really sources within the CIA who talked behind Martinez’s back, knowing that Martinez did not want to be the subject of this article? People who said nasty things like
"He did not condemn the tough methods, colleagues said, but he was learning that his talents lay elsewhere."
If there were, I would love to know who they are. I'll bet that Martinez would love to know who they are, too.
More NYT illogic---because other people have decided to write books in which they “out” themselves for whatever reason (possibly for money or maybe because they have a great story to tell), the NYTs believes that
it has a right to out Mr. Martinez---for money or because it believes that he has a great story to tell, and it is a gosh darn shame that he has never told it. Never mind that hearsay from other parties is a crap way to tell someone’s story. Has the NYTs been reduced to the level of supermarket tabloid, getting interviews with the maid of Brittney Spears because that is the only way they can get any info about a celebrity?
The NYTs wants us to understand that they
seriously considered Mr. Martinez’s request. They promise. But they absolutely had to write this story----why? Because someone in the office of the Vice President or maybe Paul Wolfowitz told them to? Because McClatchy had a big multipart series about how the U.S. military under Rumsfeld had beaten, tortured, jailed without charges, allowed to be indoctrinated and then finally dumped a bunch of prisoners from Gitmo?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/259/story/38772.htmlAnd so the administration wanted to make sure that the newspaper of record told the world that it was really the spooks at the CIA that who were doing all the torturing? Even if it meant outing another CIA agent whom we are told one minute is retired (so it ok, we are not losing a resource in the war on terror). But wait---
Martinez has not turned away entirely from his old world. He now works for Mitchell & Jessen Associates, a consulting company run by former military psychologists who advised the C.I.A. on the use of harsh tactics in the secret program.
And his new employer sent Martinez right back to the agency. For now, the unlikely interrogator of the man perhaps most responsible for the horrors of 9/11 teaches other C.I.A. analysts the arcane art of tracking terrorists.
You know, this is starting to look more and more like the outing of Valerie Plame . As the administration ratchets up its plans for the invasion of Iran, is this article meant as a warning to the intelligence community? Back off with the Iran NIE, or we will go after you where you are most vulnerable---your agents.
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