I never thought I’d live to see the day when my daughter’s grade school newspaper had higher journalistic standards than the New York Times, but perhaps I just don’t dream big enough.
In all fairness, the articles at my daughter’s paper that appeal to the editorial board (longer vacations, less homework, a make-your-own-sundae-bar on every school bus) tend to get heavier consideration and better placement than others. Unfortunately, the same can be said for articles that meet the heavily liberal bias at the New York Times.
But unlike the Times, my daughter’s school paper actually requires articles to be based on fact, be backed up with real sources, and it takes pains to guard against people who would like nothing more than to use it to grind a host of axes.
To that end, the latest axe-grinders granted access to the once venerable, now wrinkled Gray Lady’s anemic subscribership are Canadian Robert Young Pelton and anti-US military, ex-CNN News exec, Eason Jordan. In a piece yesterday entitled Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants, Messsrs. Pelton and Jordan vent their rage at losing a Department of Defense contract and take outrageous outrage to new heights by claiming that not only did they lose the contract, but that the people they suspect took over are doing an even better job:
The contractor, Robert Young Pelton, an author who writes extensively about war zones, said that the government hired him to gather information about Afghanistan and that [Michael D.] Furlong improperly used his work. “We were providing information so they could better understand the situation in Afghanistan, and it was being used to kill people,” Mr. Pelton said.
He said that he and Eason Jordan, a former television news executive, had been hired by the military to run a public Web site to help the government gain a better understanding of a region that bedeviled them. Recently, the top military intelligence official in Afghanistan publicly said that intelligence collection was skewed too heavily toward hunting terrorists, at the expense of gaining a deeper understanding of the country.
Instead, Mr. Pelton said, millions of dollars that were supposed to go to the Web site were redirected by Mr. Furlong toward intelligence gathering for the purpose of attacking militants.
Outrage!
Set aside for a moment your shock at learning that a liberal media hack (who was forced to resign from CNN over remarks that U.S. soldiers were killing journalists in Iraq) and Pelton, a non-U.S citizen whose reporting from Afghanistan has been publicly challenged by the Army, ended up losing a D.O.D. contract, and consider how incredibly unprofessional and inappropriate it is for the New York Times to give these guys a platform. It is also dangerous and could well result in blood ending up on the hands of Pelton, Jordan and the two Times stooges who willingly wrote the article for them.
If the New York Times wants to be the soap box upon which any disappointed, disaffected person who ever lost a contract (or for that matter had his feelings hurt because some high school coed turned him down for the prom) can climb, then that’s the Times’s business. But when it publishes another article in a long line of stories that could put American lives at risk it is time to say enough. Stop.
Pelton and Jordan lost a contract. It happens every day. I’m sure it was a letdown. But instead of manning up and moving on, they decided to name names – sort of.
In an article replete with smears and innuendo, Pelton and Jordan attempted the cowardly “journalistic” equivalent of torching the home of the coed who snubbed them for the prom. Aided and abetted by “ace” Times reporters Dexter Filkins in Kabul and Mark Mazzetti in Washington, they sloshed gasoline over the walls and windows, struck their matches and were very likely waiting at the bottoms of their respective driveways when the paper arrived yesterday, eager to watch everything burn.
As the flames leapt up, they hoped to see one of this nation’s most patriotic and honorable warriors, Mike Furlong burned beyond recognition. And what, pray tell was Mike’s crime? According to the Times, as well as its legion of “anonymous sources,” Furlong found a better way to spend taxpayer dollars on intelligence gathering. Like them, I was stunned, but for different reasons.
You see, I’m a bit jaded. I’ve long labored under the assumption that my government is incapable of ever finding a cheaper, faster, or better way of doing things. But Mike Furlong, according to Pelton and Jordan, had done just that and of course in doing so (as any liberal will tell you) deserved to be dragged through the mud on the way to the public pillory. He’s obviously an evil, evil man. My God! He ripped the government teat right out of Pelton’s and Jordan’s mouths. How dare he? Has this public servant no shame?
Probably not, nor should he. Considering how these two crybabies ran to the New York Times the minute Furlong (or whoever had discovered a better intelligence-gathering mousetrap) pulled their plug, these are the last two people in my estimation who should ever be anywhere near American taxpayer dollars, let alone foreign intelligence gathering.
And while we’re on the subject of foreign intelligence, I made a few calls of my own, both to Afghanistan and to people I know in the intelligence community domestically. While you could practically hear eyes rolling over the mention of Eason Jordan, Robert Young Pelton was the name that really got their blood boiling.
According to my sources, Pelton has a history of attacking his enemies and likes to grind people down who openly oppose him by threatening libel suits. He also likes to brag about intimidating bloggers who can’t afford to defend themselves in court. Charming indeed, but that’s not the half of it.
My sources, many of whom are Central Intelligence Agency personnel unhappy with the CIA’s dysfunctional intelligence culture, assert that Pelton was all too happy to carry leaking buckets of Agency water. According to these “anonymous” intelligence officials (take that Filkins and Mazzetti), Pelton and the Agency both have the same beef — smarter, slimmed down, more efficient private enterprises are getting the job done quicker, cleaner and at a lower cost. Out-of-control cowboys wasting taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan is a canard created out of whole cloth by bitter CIA lifers who have neither been there, nor gotten the tee-shirt to prove it.
While there are, without question, many exceptional men and women at the CIA, we as a nation need to face up to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency is a Cold War era relic in severe need of an extreme home makeover. From the F.O.B. Chapman attack and the underwear bomber to the fact that no Central Intelligence Agency management or leadership personnel were held responsible for 9/11, Langley needs to be put on notice by the American people. If the Central Intelligence Agency was a company in the private sector, its customers would have deserted it a long time ago and it would have been forced to file for bankruptcy.
Now, I certainly don’t want to see the CIA go out of business, but I would like to see them undergo a long overdue reorganization. If former special operations personnel can get the job done by taking the fight to our enemies, then by God let them. If you want them to work for you, then learn to mirror what attracts them to the private sector.
And at the very least, stop vilifying them. Americans can see all too well what you and people like Robert Young Pelton are doing. You’re unhappy, we get it. But you know what? We don’t care. Either lead, follow, or get out of the way. There is serious work to be done. American lives are on the line.
Pelton’s record speaks for itself, as does Jordan’s. In the meantime, the Central Intelligence Agency is beginning to make quite a name for itself. Not only has it chosen to self-castrate, but Gollum-like it spits and hisses at men and women of action; men and women of courage who have the guts to do what needs to be done to keep our nation safe.
Having cut off its own testicles, our CIA solemnly proclaims that no one else should be entitled to testicles either.
The management and leadership of the Central Intelligence Agency need to take note: the only balls America has authorized you to cut off are those of our enemies. It’s high time you grow a new pair and get back to the work we’re paying you to do.
And while you’re at it, dump the hangers on like Pelton and Jordan. Even if you are driving this narrative, anti-military and stone-throwing-foreign types make us look weak.
Finally, you may find this hard to believe, but we still see all of you at Langley as our Superheroes. Please start acting like it.
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