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________________________________________________________ 4. How the mass media covers for
Vincent Cannistraro, terrorist, and creator of the Nicaraguan Contras. Concerning the 1988 bombing of Pan-Am flight 103
over Lockerbie, Scotland, the Washington Post reported in November of 1990 as
follows: “Vincent
Cannistraro, who was chief of operations and analysis at the CIA’s
counterterrorism center, said investigators have made ‘substantial progress
in identifying the modus operandi by which that bomb got on board.’”[1] What is the point of describing Vincent Cannistraro
as someone “who was chief of operations and analysis at the CIA’s
counterterrorism center”? Naturally, to make the reader feel that Cannistraro
can be trusted as a source on the topic the Washington Post is writing about:
the investigation of a terrorist attack against Pan-Am flight 103. To leave
no doubt, the Washington Post writes: “Cannistraro’s
remarks, made to reporters at a luncheon seminar, were the first indication
that the international inquiry, already the largest criminal probe in
history, may have turned up enough solid evidence to stand up in a court of
law.” In other words, if Cannistraro says that
“investigators have made ‘substantial progress,’” this to the Washington Post
becomes “the first indication that [there is] enough solid evidence to stand
up in a court of law.” You can trust Cannistraro, says the Post. And the Post does not waste any opportunities to try
and burnish Cannistraro’s supposed luster: “Cannistraro made his remarks at a
luncheon signaling his debut as a senior fellow at the National Strategy
Information Center,” a supposedly “nongovernmental organization,” according
to their website.[2] This
identifies Cannistraro as a quotable, mainstream, formerly with the
government, but no longer with the government, and now at a policy think
tank, ‘expert.’ But this is remarkable, because the year in question
is 1990, which is to say only one year after 1989, when Cannistraro was still
appearing in the news for his role in the Contra affair! Why then doesn’t the
Washington Post introduce him as “Vincent Cannistraro, who used to run the
illegal terrorist Contra program”? Because the Post’s readers would
immediately wonder why this person is being quoted as a trusted authority on
anything, especially when he is supposed to be speaking as a ‘counter-terrorist.’ So is the Washington Post dishonest? The Washington Post can only be defended as honest
if we hold that the people running the Washington Post are terribly
incompetent. In fact, they have to be so incompetent that in 1990 they no
longer had any recollection of Cannistraro’s Contra role, which was still in
the news only a year earlier. Further, they are so incompetent that they
cannot do the most basic research -- in their own archives! -- to refresh
their memories about Vincent Cannistraro. With this proviso we may defend
that the Washington Post is honest, but the monumental incompetence that must
be imputed to this paper would still leave us without a good reason to trust
the Washington Post -- they are just too incompetent. Let me now defend a different hypothesis, however,
which does not require us to believe anything so absurd as that. First, I give you a vivid picture of what the
Contras were like: “The Contras
have ambushed religious-aid workers, beheading a nun and riddling her body
with bullets. They have also eviscerated a pregnant woman, shot campesinos
(peasants) and slaughtered their animals, cut down Red Cross workers and
bombed towns with their schools and hospitals.”[3] Please read that again, slower this time. One of the people responsible for blowing the
whistle on the Contras was former Contra Edgar Chamorro: “At the World
Court in the Hague, where he recently testified on behalf of the Sandinista
government, Chamorro said the CIA ‘did not discourage’ atrocities, such as
Contras terrorizing villagers, slitting throats and mutilating bodies. He described
U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s so-called ‘freedom fighters’ as a gang of
professional criminals who don’t know why they are fighting. ‘The CIA had
to send a man to train Contras to teach them what they were fighting for. It
was ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I wondered
how can democracy come to Nicaragua with all these fascists?’ Chamorro
returned to Nicaragua last October under a government amnesty. He was expelled
from the Contras in 1984 after revealing corruption within the rebel movement
and a CIA manual on jungle warfare, which advocated assassination as a
political means.”[4] Now, as you may recall, in Part 3 I
quoted an article in which the following was reported: “Following the
1984 flap over a CIA-sponsored manual for the contras that advocated
assassination, [Oliver] North helped arrange a job on the NSC staff for
Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who had run the agency’s task force on
the contras.” It is important properly to digest this with the
utmost precision: Cannistraro ran “the [CIA’s] task force on the
contras,” which became mired in controversy when Edgar Chamorro made public
that the CIA manual for the Contras -- for which Cannistraro was responsible
-- “advocated assassination.” Cannistraro was the man teaching the Contras
to commit atrocities. North transferred Cannistraro to the NSC staff in part
to protect him from this controversy, and also because he wanted Cannistraro
to continue running the Contra program from the NSC. Now, guess who it is that reported above how North
brought Cannistraro to the NSC when Cannistraro’s terrorist strategy created
a controversy? That was David Ignatius from. . .the Washington
Post.[5] This was in
1986, only four years before the same Washington Post would re-suit Vincent
Cannistraro and present him to its readers as a counter-terrorism
expert who could be trusted in his new role as pundit. Is this shocking? That’s nothing. In 2001 the
same Washington Post published an editorial with the title “Assassination
is wrong.”[6] Guess who
wrote it? You’ll never guess: Vincent Cannistraro, the man who, as the
Washington Post reported in 1986, taught the Contra terrorists . . .what?
Why, how to assassinate! So the Washington Post clearly cannot be accused of
incompetence, for even the greatest paroxysm of incompetence will not make
anything like this possible.
The Washington Post, however, can certainly be
accused of dishonesty. . .and cynicism. As we have already
seen in Part 2, the Washington Post is not alone:
the entire Western mass media treats Cannistraro as a trusted expert, so much
so that he now parades himself, I remind you, as “Vince Cannistraro, an ABC
News analyst and former CIA counterterrorism chief.”[7]
Continue to part 5: Footnotes and Further Reading [1] Pan Am
Bombing Probe Progressing; U.S. 'Very Close' to Securing Indictments, Ex-CIA Official
Says, The Washington Post, November 21, 1990, Wednesday, Final Edition, FIRST
SECTION; PAGE A6, 1037 words, George Lardner Jr., Washington Post Staff
Writer, NATIONAL NEWS, FOREIGN NEWS [3] Contras
cling to their war, The Toronto Star, April 29, 1990, Sunday, SUNDAY SECOND
EDITION, NEWS; Pg. H1, 1030 words, By Linda Diebel Toronto Star, MANAGUA [4] U.S.
operating 70 covert schemes ex-CIA man says, The Toronto Star, March 26,
1988, Saturday, SATURDAY SECOND EDITION, NEWS; Pg. A15, 449 words, By Robert
Brehl Toronto Star [5] Tale of Two
White House Aides: Confidence and Motivation; North Viewed as a Can-Do Marine
Who Went Too Far in Zealousness, The Washington Post, November 30, 1986,
Sunday, Final Edition Correction Appended, FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1, 2694
words, David Ignatius, Washington Post Staff Writer, FOREIGN NEWS, NATIONAL
NEWS, BIOGRAPHY [6] Assassination
Is Wrong -- and Dumb, The Washington Post, August 30, 2001
Thursday, Final Edition, EDITORIAL; Pg. A29, 820 words, Vincent
Cannistraro [7] BIN LADEN IS
AT LARGE: CIA; FLED AFGHANISTAN IN DECEMBER, REPORT CLAIMS, The Toronto Sun,
January 16, 2002 Wednesday,, Final Edition, News;, Pg. 12, 273 words, SPECIAL
TO THE TORONTO SUN, WASHINGTON |
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