The New York Times depicts former CIA officer Duane Clarridge (photo: Mike Wintroath/AP)
In its effort to vet one of the leading GOP presidential candidates, Dr. Ben Carson, the New York Times didn’t properly vet its primary source in this vetting, former CIA officer Duane Clarridge—an indicted liar and overseer of Contra death squads in Central America.
While the Times‘ Trip Gabriel briefly notes the former, he completely omits the latter, instead offering this starry-eyed description:
Mr. Clarridge, described by Mr. Carson’s top adviser, Armstrong Williams, as “a mentor for Dr. Carson,” is a colorful, even legendary figure in intelligence circles, someone who could have stepped out of a Hollywood thriller. He was a longtime CIA officer, serving undercover in India, Turkey, Italy and other countries, and sprinkles his remarks with salty language.
As head of Reagan’s CIA division in Latin America in the 1980s, Clarridge took part in the effort to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by illegally supplying funds and arms to the Contras—a right-wing terrorist movement that committed brutal war crimes. This was not an unforeseen consequence, but the point of the operation; asked by CIA Director William Casey to come up with a strategy for dealing with the Sandinista revolution, Clarridge writes in his memoir A Spy for All Seasons:
My plan was simple:
- Take the war to Nicaragua.
- Start killing Cubans.
Clarridge acknowledges that his plan, “stated so bluntly, undoubtedly sounds harsh.”
He also boasts of having come up with the idea of mining Nicaragua’s harbors to interfere with shipping:
I remember sitting with a glass of gin on the rocks, smoking a cigar (of course), and pondering my dilemma, when it hit me. Sea mines were the solution…. To this day I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner.
The mines were, as conservative icon Sen. Barry Goldwater pointed out, an “act of war”—and predictably resulted in the deaths of civilians, something that doesn’t trouble Clarridge overly much. Or, apparently, the New York Times.
The Times vaguely alludes to the Iran/Contra scandal but without mentioning what it entailed, namely that Clarridge had an operational involvement with terrorist death squads.
In addition to this bloodsoaked past, Clarridge has more recently been a freelance hit-list generator for the Defense Department in Afghanistan (New York Times, 3/14/10)–part of what the Times referred to as “an off-the-books spy operation.”
The kid-glove treatment would even extend to ethnic slurs, which the Times glosses over without citing specifically. Gabriel quotes Clarridge dismissing the notion—spread by right-wing media—that there are Chinese troops in Syria, “using an ethnic slur for the Chinese.” If a top adviser to a leading presidential candidate is referring to Chinese people as “Chinks”—or the equivalent—isn’t that a newsworthy fact that the New York Times ought to report?
It’s not a surprise a New York Times Beltway insider like Trip Gabriel would whitewash Clarridge’s brutal resume to the point of unrecognizability, but it doesn’t make using a grotesque violator of human rights and a known liar to kneecap Carson any less sleazy. On the issue of policy knowledge, it is more than fair to point out Carson’s shortcomings. But the bigger story here—that a leading candidate’s primary international adviser is a CIA goon with a bloody (or as the Times would put it “colorful”) past—is buried in a story about a routine DC pissing match.
This is how America’s war crimes are laundered, by absorbing the most complicit and criminal into respectable circles by passing them off as “experts” with “legendary” pasts. The Times would have better served its readers by pointing out, in clear and honest terms, what this “colorful, even legendary” past amounted to. It would help put Clarridge’s testimony—and Carson’s potential nomination—into historical and moral context.
Adam H. Johnson is an associate editor at AlterNet and writes frequently for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @adamjohnsonnyc. Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com, or write to public editor Margaret Sullivan: public@nytimes.com (Twitter: @NYTimes or @Sulliview). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
According to Naureckas and Johnson, the Times gives “kid-glove treatment…to ethnic slurs.”
Too bad FAIR is guilty of far worse. For example, FAIR routinely cites to a Mondoweiss article apologizing for Hamas’ genocidal charter because “it represents an important historical document.”
Moral of the story: Don’t squander your left-wing credibility by cozying up to fascists.
“Colorful”
Ignoring the color that would be
@Willy
Your attempt to bully FAIR writers into going after Palestinians is pretty shameful. It’s also inaccurate.
From Alex Kane on FAIR in 2010:
“But the truth about Hamas is much more nuanced than what corporate media repeat. While it is true that the 1988 founding charter of Hamas includes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and calls for the establishment of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, Hamas’ leadership has largely abandoned that rhetoric. In the run-up to the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Hamas dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto (Guardian, 1/12/06).”
It’s similar to another complaint, by “William” who complained that Peter Hart “fails to mention is that Hamas made it clear that this “truce” was not meant to be a peace agreement, but merely a prelude to battle, the purpose of which is to destroy Israel. Not surprising, given that Hamas’ charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and genocide against the Jews.”
None of this has to do with Nicaragua, and is also misinformation. Maybe your thing just isn’t politics. Do you think you can get into baseball?
I stand corrected, Lewis T.
I found this “nuance” in Hamas’ charter: “Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”
I was also pleased to discover that Hamas has not called for the destruction of Israel since 2006. For example, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal commemorated the 25th anniversary of Hamas in 2012 with this conciliatory remark: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.”
In short, Lewis T, your post was a home run.
Great reporting. We ought remember that Hamas exists today largely thanks to Israeli covert support in its infancy as a foil to Fatah, which was then considered by the Zionist leadership in Israel to be the greater threat. Hamas, for all its faults, is the only organization that is able to provide a bare minimum of social services to Palestinians. As for Mashal’s remarks of 2012, which is worse? The rhetoric? Or the reality?
According to your story, the TImes missed that he is “an indicted liar and overseer of Contra death squads in Central America.” Yet, you would have already known that by clicking the link in the Times’ own story. Not exactly ‘great reporting’ here.
@Willy I think you’ve been at it again, brainstorming using a belt sander across your lobotomised left hemisphere. Hamas Charter got its cues from the Likud Charter of the Zionists, just as the Palestinians borrowed the tactics of the Zionists to fight the oppression ‘of’ the Zionists. Terror is the Zionist tool and from the beginning, what they used as the Irgun and Stern Gangs and, of course, is incomplete without their blaming the Palestinians for their own roadside cafe bombs, and more, King David Hotel bombing…guess what, Palestinians didn’t do, but their mistake was fighting back, fire with fire, and so innocents died, too, but when you’re at that point in being dehumanised, and desparate, a saner solution might be missed. There’s this condition, Partially Deceased Syndrome, go see a doc, they could recommend you to the show, In the Flesh as a real life example.