Today's news reminded me of this tasty bit from Doug Valentine's CIA as Organized Crime. Spread this, and watch the NPR defending libs squirm in explaining this one away.

NPR was badly embarrassed in 2000 when it was revealed that PSYOP (psychological operations) personnel from Ft. Bragg were working in its Washington, DC newsroom, apparently as interns.* Top managers were said to be unaware of the arrangement, which was blamed on people in its personnel department. However, based on NPR’s cozy relationship with the military and its penchant to spew pro-military propaganda (some say the P in NPR stands for Pentagon) media watchdogs, myself included, believed the PSYOP soldiers were penetration agents meant to influence news coverage.

In any event, on 30 December 2009, I listened in dismay, but not surprise, as an NPR “terrorism” expert condemned the suicide bombing that had killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan a few days earlier.2 That particular act of terrorism, the expert said, was especially hideous because the murdered CIA officers were spreading economic development, democracy and love as members of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

No less disingenuous were the comments of CIA Director Leon Panetta, who said the deceased did “the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism.”

Or fuel terrorism, as the case may be.

President Obama added his two cents, saying the fallen CIA officers were “part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life.”

“Our way of life” in the twenty-first century means Full Spectrum Dominance and a burgeoning precariat.

On New Year’s Day 2010 – the story of the martyred CIA officers having expired – Washington Post staff writers Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable ventured beyond the initial spin. Rather than cast the CIA officers as heroes, they hinted at the murderous activities they were involved in. Warrick and Constable said the CIA officers were secretly “at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency’s remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”

• J. Max Robins, “Military Interns Booted From CNN, NPR: How Did Army Officers Get Into The News Business?”, TV Guide, April 15-21, 2000.