The New York Times is acting as the CIA’s press agent, as it often does, in order to get more funding for Ukraine. From John Kiriakou at scheerpost.com:
Did The New York Times publish its “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin” piece to reveal government secrets in the public’s interest? Or was it to convince Americans that “Now these intelligence networks are more important than ever?”
This insider perspective from ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou is one of two stories ScheerPost has published on the New York Times’ “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin.” To read a veteran journalist’s perspective, read Patrick Lawrence’s piece here.
The New York Times on February 25 published an explosive story of what purports to be the history of the CIA in Ukraine from the Maidan coup of 2014 to the present. The story, “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” is one of initial bilateral distrust, but a mutual fear and hatred of Russia, that progresses to a relationship so intimate that Ukraine is now one of the CIA’s closest intelligence partners in the world.
At the same time, the Times’ publication of the piece, which reporters claimed relied on more than 200 interviews in Ukraine, the US, and “several European countries,” raises multiple questions: Why did the CIA not object to the article’s publication, especially with it being in one of the Agency’s preferred outlets? When the CIA approaches a newspaper to complain about the classified information it contains, the piece is almost always killed or severely edited. Newspaper publishers are patriots, after all. Right?
Was the article published because the CIA wanted the news out there? Perhaps more important was the point of the article to influence the Congressional budget deliberations on aid to Ukraine? After all, was the article really just meant to brag about how great the CIA is? Or was it to warn Congressional appropriators, “Look how much we’ve accomplished to confront the Russian bear. You wouldn’t really let it all go to waste, would you?”
