"I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this"
It doesn't take an active imagination, just basic historical literacy, to imagine a US intelligence official being incorrect. Yet, many in the US media continue to take gullibility to new heights.
Can you imagine a US intelligence official being wrong about something?
Or worse yet actively lying?
If you have even the vaguest familiarity with the history of US intelligence, the answer is obviously yes. Phrases like “Gulf of Tonkin” or “weapons of mass destruction” should float to the top of your mind.
Yet, apparently there are some within the American media who in spite of decades of evidence, still can’t cope with reality.
On Monday, I discussed how an Associated Press story parroted now debunked claims from an anonymous US intelligence official and almost got us into World War III. The reporter purportedly responsible, James LaPorta, has now been fired.
The Washington Post in reporting on LaPorta’s termination also shed some light on the internal editorial process that resulted in the falsity’s publication. And my friend and colleague journalist Kevin Gosztola called attention on twitter to a particularly disturbing aspect of that process.
Apparently, when discussing whether the sourcing was adequate for a story that could result in World War III, a senior editor reasoned “I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this."
It’s a mind boggling quote for a host of reasons. First, it seems like skepticism is healthy in journalism. Second, given the stakes demanding evidence is all the more necessary. And finally, US intelligence officials are not only wrong all the time, they lie to manipulate the media!
Fascinatingly enough, thanks to American patriot and whistleblower Edward Snowden an old video of Frank Snepp explaining how he planted stories in mainstream newspapers recently went viral. Snepp was a CIA analyst in Saigon during the Vietnam War. He later soured on the CIA and attempted to write an insider’s account while defying the CIA’s prepublication review requirements. The CIA prevailed.
In Snepp’s own words, he would brief journalist with “disinformation” in hopes of getting it in print. And it often worked (since I am writing a book for Verso on the FBI, I would be derelict in mentioning the CIA was not the only intelligence agency that tried to influence public opinion and manipulate the media).
As I said on Monday, we don’t know the intent of this anonymous official. Maybe he truly was confused by the fact that it was a Russian-made missile. Or maybe, as intelligence officials often do, he was deliberately planting disinformation in order to influence US-Russia policy. There is clearly a faction of the US national security establishment that would like to see the US play an even more interventionist role in Ukraine. And in spite of the fact that Biden has pumped billions of American dollars into the Russia-Ukraine war, some of them are not satiated, wishing Biden would pursue more aggressive policies.
There are plenty of more recent examples than Vietnam that should have given the Associated Press pause. Bush Administration officials used New York Times reporter Judith Miller as a conduit for misinformation about Iraq and then publicly used her reporting to bolster their own case for a war of aggressive that likely resulted in a million deaths. Jame Clapper perjured himself before Congress when asked about the NSA’s collection of US citizen’s metadata.And the un-indicted perjurer not only remains at large, but he has had a profitable career as talking head on cable news. It is becoming increasingly plausible that intelligence officials committed to antiquated Cold War policies have spread rather bizarre disinformation about “Havana syndrome” to sink any diplomatic rapprochement between the US and Cuba.
So it doesn’t take much imagination to think a US intelligence official could be wrong.
"Could be wrong"? You are giving the so called "intelligence" agencies too much credit. They are often deliberately wrong and since there is no valid civilian oversight, they do so with impunity. The Deep State is actively attempting to destroy the US and with it, the Wortld.