New York Times Outs CIA's Covert Air Fleet

Pretty unbelievable. The newspaper that got itself into such a tizzy about the supposed "outing" of stateside mom Valerie Plame now reveals all on the CIA's successor to Air America, the air fleet that ferries the CIA into hot zones and moves terrorists to interrogations sites.

It's one thing to speak of the dimensions of the project and the uses of the planes, but what, precisely, is served by revealing the names of all the shell companies used to keep the planes "clean" from CIA association, or even the man's name who incorporated the companies, or the precise models of planes in the fleet?

Is the New York Times actively attempting to undermine the CIA and serve as a free intelligence agency for hostile foreign governments?

I'm not naive. I know that a fairly decent foreign intelligence service would already some or most of this. But what about a terrorist organization?

And while semi-friendly governments may have played along with the CIA's ruse and allowed CIA planes into their airspace -- winking at them, permitting overflights while knowing they weren't really civilian jets -- now those governments are duty bound to refuse overflight permissions, as the whole world (including their anti-American populations) know knows, for example, that "Pegasus Technologies" is a CIA-front holding company, and that any plane owned by that shell is up to no good (or great good, depending on your POV).

Thanks a lot, New York Times!

They really consider themselves Citizens of the Global Journalism Nation, don't they?

Thanks to "someone."

posted by Ace at 12:30 PM

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