Did the New York Times just out an undercover CIA Operative?

Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

If this guy is working for the CIA, why is it OK for the New York Times to put it out in the paper for all to see? I wouldn't want my name out there if I was a CIA mole in a country with a civil war. What are the odds that someone comes gunning for his life now?

More from the article:

Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the C.I.A.

The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.

Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Karzai also helps the C.I.A. communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s role as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban is now regarded as valuable by those who support working with Mr. Karzai, as the Obama administration is placing a greater focus on encouraging Taliban leaders to change sides.

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.

So the alleged "CIA Agent" denies it, and the CIA won't comment on it. Someone else in the Obama administration has leaked this information, and now this agent and his operations have a raised threat level. They even detail his work with the strike force, and they even pinpoint the compound and name the actual house where they are basing operations.

Is publishing this information of a undercover CIA agent and the extent of the details of the covert operation good for America? Where is the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post on this? It appears they are with the New York Times.




Also from the Wall Street Journal:

October Marks Deadliest Month for U.S. in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a cesspool of humanity that can't even give Detroit a run for its money. I don't see what we are really trying to accomplish there anymore. What would be victory and what would it look like? The Generals want a sustained effort and increased troops that could last another decade. From a cost benefit analysis, I see lots of costs that are clear and unavoidable. From the benefit side of the analysis I see little gain and perhaps some loss. "Walking through the region is "like walking through the Old Testament." (- Dutch Commander) Afghanistan is in the stone age. It was Stone Age before we came in, and it will be in the stone age long after we leave. Time to cut bait.

Yesterday the Washington Post ran this:

U.S. official resigns over Afghan war
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

...

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.


"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

Read the whole thing.

Looks like I got a bit off topic, but it is my blog and I am a ramblin man.

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