The Little Cart Boy

Terrorism fears out of hand

By ROBERT WELLER

Some one high in our intelligence operation apparently has told some reporters that Najibullah Zazi of Aurora, Colo., has links to Al Quaida.

You never would have seen this in a book by John Le Carre. I have spent some time with intelligence people overseas, including being questioned. They would have gone ballistic if the media had identified someone they were watching or perhaps working with.

Zazi, who became a target for a terrorism probe when he went to check on a cart his family owns in lower Manhattan, may be a true target, may have connections to Osama Bin Laden, or he could be a publicity seeker. On Saturday he denied the connections and refused to meet again with the FBI. News reports said he and his father were arrested Saturday night, but likely would face charges of lying to the government not terrorism.

Even the spooks watching him may want publicity for any number of reasons, including trying to calm the public by showing they are on the job.

After all he has been to Pakistan several times in recent years, ostensibly to visit his wife. Why doesn't she come to America. I have no idea. Perhaps she doesn't qualify for a visa.

The spooks I worked with would have tried to keep this investigation secret. Intelligence is best gained when it isn't on a hundred Web sites. Evidence can be contaminated if too many people have access to it. On

If people they were following were identified they would be cut off by their masters, and likely would be killed.

I remember a question I posed to the then-Marxist government of Mozambique about claims that the U.S. had hired one of their citizens to spy, and he had worked for them for several years. I asked if they didn't have any hard proof _ drop boxes, messages written on paper with secret inks or urine. They had nothing. I got a nudge from behind and a smile at a news conference from the American charge d'affaires.

From a patriotic point of view, the media should have sat on this. And from a journalistic point of view a little more skepticism was in order. Editors told me they had no choice.

In a column last week one of the founders of CNN remembered being taught that the media does not have to use information or images given to them.

Few news sources used a gross picture of a Marine dying after having his leg blown off by a rocket propelled grenade in Afghanistan.

In "Good morning Vietnam," in one of his DJ segments, Robin WilliamsRobin Williams pretends he is talking with military intelligence. I must stop here to insert that it is an oxymoron.

He asks the intelligence officer how they are doing finding Vietcong. "We are finding that we can't find them," the agent says. "We asked them if they are Vietcong and if they say yes we shoot them." The agent said a big part of the problem is that none of them is named Charley.

Looking at history we did have a way to handle this kind of thing in World War II, before courts denounced it as profiling. We put the Japanese in concentration camps, including in Colorado.

One story quoted the FBI as saying they had found that he took pictures of Grand Central Station from a phone. They were disregarded as tourist like photos. Excuse me. What better way to help set up a nefarious plan that could result in huge headlines and show that the war on terror must continue.

In the meantime, it can be used by our intelligence people to justify continually violating U.S. law. And perhaps even stop punishment for CIA officials being investigated for doing just that. Former CIA directors are urging President Obama to stop looking back.

It is just another example of how we let things go: The Bush 2000 election victory for example. The thinking, even of Al GoreAl Gore, was that it would cause the country too much trouble. How stupid that looks after eight years of incompetence and worse.

The Army takes the same approach, declining to discipline officers who abused soldiers returning with Post-Traumatic Stress Order. It raises the question of how to convince their colleagues that it is okay for them to report for care. If their commanders are not held responsible, even though the Army has repeatedly told them to help these wounded soldiers and they lean towards punish or even call them malingerers.