Today the Washington Post (2/6/13) reported some news that it’s known for years, but had decided not tell us until now: The CIA has a drone base in Saudi Arabia.
Their rationale for withholding this information was simple: The government didn’t want them to. And from what the Post is telling us today, they weren’t the only ones.
After explaining that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by an attack “carried out in part by CIA drones flown from a secret base in Saudi Arabia,” the paper explains:
The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an Al-Qaeda affiliate regarded as the network’s most potent threat to the United States, as well as potentially damage counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.
So why did the Post finally report this news today?
The Post learned Tuesday night that another news organization was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year.
So there was an “informal arrangement among several news organizations” not to report important news because the government felt that it could make things difficult for them.
It would appear that “another news organization” is the New York Times, which reported today:
The first strike in Yemen ordered by the Obama administration, in December 2009, was by all accounts a disaster. American cruise missiles carrying cluster munitions killed dozens of civilians, including many women and children. Another strike, six months later, killed a popular deputy governor, inciting angry demonstrations and an attack that shut down a critical oil pipeline.
Not long afterward, the CIA began quietly building a drone base in Saudi Arabia to carry out strikes in Yemen. American officials said that the first time the CIA used the Saudi base was to kill Mr. Awlaki in September 2011.
The fact that the Post was keeping something secret was known in 2011, as FAIR noted (FAIR Blog, 7/27/11), quoting the paper:
The agency is building a desert airstrip so that it can begin flying armed drones over Yemen. The facility, which is scheduled to be completed in September, is designed to shield the CIA’s aircraft, and their sophisticated surveillance equipment, from observers at busier regional military hubs such as Djibouti, where the JSOC drones are based.
The Washington Post is withholding the specific location of the CIA facility at the administration’s request.
As FAIR also pointed out then, this was reminiscent of another decision by the Post to withhold news. In 2005, the paper delivered an explosive story about “black sites” where CIA was interrogating suspects–places where, in many cases, the agency could reasonably expect the prisoners to be tortured. The Post‘s valuable expose was undercut by its decision not to name the countries involved. As the paper explained:
The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.
This week, a new report from the Open Society Institute documented that more than 50 countries were involved in the CIA “extraordinary rendition” program. It’s certainly possible that some countries might have stopped helping the U.S. government torture people if it had been made known that they were doing so.
Likewise, it’s possible that Saudi Arabia will stop allowing the CIA to use its territory to conduct a secret drone war against a third country now that the secret is out. But the possibility that news might affect the world is not a reason to stop doing journalism. Indeed, it’s the best reason to do journalism.
UPDATE: The Times‘ public editor Margaret Sullivan has weighed in on her blog (2/6/13), and what’s most notable is the opinion of the paper’s managing editor Dean Baquet, since it basically confirms the point we were making above:
The government’s rationale for asking that the location be withheld was this: Revealing it might jeopardize the existence of the base and harm counterterrorism efforts. “The Saudis might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,” he said.
Mr. Baquet added, “We have to balance that concern with reporting the news.”
So the Times believes that it should refrain from reporting news that people in Saudi Arabia might object to–especially if it wound up complicating our government’s plans to launch military attacks from their country.
Not publishing information is not always a journalistic sin.
It comes down to the consequences of doing so, doesn’t it?
If you accept that the US’ aims are beneficent, and making public information would harm those aims, do you refrain from publishing that information?
If you believe that the US is engaged in immoral and illegal acts for pernicious purposes, do you have an obligation to reveal information that will deter those acts?
We tend to want to codify actions in such situations, and avoid relying on moral judgments.
But you really can’t, can you?
In this instance, you have to decide if whatever benefit that may be derived from “anti-terrorist” actions is outweighed by the detriment of allowing the US to carry out its own acts of terror.
Who benefits? Who is harmed?
We like simple morality plays
And that’s often not the way the world works, is it?
I think we have to acknowledge that our noble intentions may not always result in positive outcomes for those whom we don’t wish to harm.
That doesn’t mean we don’t act on them
But it does mean we need to give serious thought to all their consequences, positive and negative.
In this instance, my judgment would be to inform the public, because I believe the harm of not doing so outweighs that of disclosure.
But regardless of my amply warranted skepticism of the government’s warning of harming its proclaimed goals, or possibly putting lives put at risk, I’m mindful that this may well not be an unalloyed positive action
And I accept that possibility.
It’s the only choice I can make, and remain true to my conscience.
I think you forgot one other option; just do as your told by your boss, no matter what you believe. That is the centuries old Morals Dodge; “I was told to do it, I was just following orders”.
@Doug Latimer
Do yourself a favor and research The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 40 years later. The info. is filled with declassified truth. Pernicious purposes are clearly laid out with declassified facts, with N.S.A. documents and D.O.D facts and Johnson.s White House tapes on Gulf of Tonkin, etc. The role of the C.I.A. is available also. The State Department Foreign Relation is also there to be read.
Very interesting reading.
Would news reporting on extraordinary rendition affect Americans? Their reaction would mostly be limited to a demand that government take punitive measures on newspapers disturbing readers’s consciences. After all, is not the blank check traditionally given to the National Security State conditioned on seeing no evil and hearing no evil. This fits in with the secrecy that probably has more to do with hiding the corruption that absolute power brings than hiding from the enemy what it probably already knows.
@ Doug Latimer
If someone accepts claims of beneficence from govt spokespeople, they’re not journalists. They should consider the *possibility* of beneficence, but to use that as a starting point would be a huge mistake.
I don’t trust any journalist that the power elite feel comfortable enough with to commit to a sit-down Q&A.
When Amy Goodman asked Bill Clinton too many pertinent questions he became indignant and ended the interview.
Political embarrassment should not be equated with national security.
Bearpaw, I wasn’t trying to intimate that the possibilities are roughly equal.
I equate the chances of beneficience from those in power – other than as a wholly unintended byproduct, or a Machiavellian manipulation in service to darker purposes – with those of a black person being elected governor of the great and sovereign state of Miss’ssippi.
(Said the good ol’ boy from that neck of the woods.)
Professor, of course I’m familiar with the broad outlines of that deadly duplicity, as I am with so many other lies of empire.
Just to be clear, I was trying to pose a hypothetical, and not implying that the underlying rationale for any act of imperialism could ever be considered motivated by a desire to do the mensch thing.
If you have any fealty to the facts, that’s the only conclusion you can come to, innit?
Empire loathes empiricism.
Addendum to Bearpaw
I was referring to the specific situation and claimed aims here, and not generalizing.
And by “accept”, I didn’t mean “trust”.
I meant coming to such a conclusion after due deliberation.
Claro?
Guess what? MF Global is a cover up as well? They didn’t initially investigate obvious crimes that damaged the integrity of markets. Criminal to the core, not investigated and not really reported, either.
So “If you see something, say something” applies to
citizens who are expected to inform on their neighbors,
but not to a “free” press which is entrusted with the
job of protecting citizens through accurate unbiased
information upon which WE THE PEOPLE can decide
for ourselves what course of action OUR government
should take?
@Ernest Martinson
*Good question about affecting Americans.
*Your post was well stated.
* I wonder what affect knowledge of E.I.T.s ( enhanced interrogation techniques [torture] ) has had on our national psyche.
What is the point of this article?That drones are launched in Saudi Arabia?So what?They need little more than a small airfield.They are launched from carriers.Im sure there are tons of airstrips.Did we ever think the Saudis are not in for a penny in for a pound in this war?
@Glenn
I was trying to find the interview with Amy Goodman and Bill Clinton.
Was it on Democracy Now? Which date? Please…