Reaction To The Scahill Piece On Blackwater Part I: Anonymous Sources And Not Knowing What To Believe

I have a few thoughts on Jeremy Scahill's piece on Blackwater's alleged activities in Pakistan. I read the piece extremely closely; I read almost every sentence two or three times to properly internalize the revelations contained therein. Because my thoughts on it are a little disparate, I am going to write separate posts on the three big issues I am concerned with. This post will deal with the very basic issue of the extent to which we should buy Scahill's claims. The other two posts, to be written in the next day or two, will deal with the relevance of the substance of the piece to (a) Pakistani security and politics, and (b) American security and politics. So without further ado...
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Investigative journalism is a messy business, primarily because the things that we care most about knowing -- secrets -- are the things people are least likely to reveal on the record. People have jobs and reputations and, at the extreme, lives to worry about. This is not an earth-shattering insight from me by any stretch; the point is only to establish a baseline from which our analysis can depart. Simply put, we are unlikely to find out anything truly worth knowing without anonymous sources.

On the other hand, anonymous sources can be a massive problem too. There are two basic issues here. First, and more importantly, anonymous sources can use their anonymity strategically. They can use their anonymity to push an agenda, and leave their claims unchallenged. The most pernicious example of this was the pre-Iraq war consensus within the mainstream U.S. media on Iraq holding WMDs being based on anonymous sources from the executive and intelligence communities. If we don't know who is saying what, then we can't critically examine their incentives to lie and misrepresent.

Generally speaking, anonymous sources can plant seeds of "information" that aren't actually true, but nevertheless essentially change the facts on the ground. With that in mind, it really is up to the journalist in question to be properly skeptical of requests for anonymity. If the journalist thinks the source is up to no good, or is simply pushing an agenda, then the source should either be forced to go on the record, or not be quoted at all. Glenn Greenwald, for instance, has always claimed that it is certainly not the case that all information, whether received from anonymous sources or not, is a good thing; frequently, information from anonymous sources can prove deeply damaging.

The second issue is simply a matter of expertise. As a keen observer of Pakistani politics, this one is especially dear to my heart. If I had a nickel for every time I've read some anonymous source say something so immensely stupid and ill-informed about Pakistani society and politics that it defies belief -- I'm talking about matters of fact, not opinion -- then I can safely say I would remove my tip jar and Google ads from this blog.

Given this state of affairs, it behooves us to assume a default position of skepticism with any news story that relies exclusively on anonymous sources. We know that Scahill's story falls under this category: his piece relies on testimony from three unnamed sources -- one in what he calls the "military intelligence apparatus" of the United States, one former executive of Blackwater, and one U.S. military source with "knowledge of" Special Ops. The question then becomes: to what extent should we trust what Scahill is saying?

There are a number of factors that suggest that Scahill is on to something. First, he has written the book on Blackwater. His expertise on this organization in unrivaled. What that means in concrete terms is that he isn't likely to be duped by people with a political axe to grind; put differently, he is more likely to be discerning when it comes to granting anonymity.

Second, the level of detail provided in the piece would take a seriously high level of imagination to conjure up. The sources that Scahill cites go as far to describe the physical nature of the main Blackwater operational facilities in Karachi ("three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center"), the precise ways in which JSOC, Blackwater, the Pakistani military and Kestral Logistics -- apparently the Pakistani equivalent of Blackwater -- cooperate and interact, the people and organizations involved, and other important nitty-gritty details. Now, it is true that the mere provision of details does not connote truth (Colin Powell at the UN, anyone?). But when trying to figure out how much we should trust the Scahill story in totality, this aspect of the piece should count in its favor.

Third, there is no obvious political winner here, either in terms of people or policies. Who or what gains from these revelations? I can think of none. By contrast, when we see a story in the New York Times about the ISI and the military still supporting elements of the Taliban, the result of those claims being taken at face value mean that those who support a greater U.S. footprint in Pakistan, and greater U.S. pressure on Pakistan, get what they want. That does not mean you dismiss those claims out of hand, but it does mean that we should be aware of the political implications of the story being swallowed wholesale, and the fact that there exists a constituency for whom there is a vested interest in anonymously-sourced quotes being taken as truth.

In this case, it is hard to see who or what benefits. The anti-Blackwater crowd? Well, sure, but (a) they could have said any number of other things that would approximate the truth (such as Blackwater's conduct in the theaters of operations that we already know of, such as Iraq) that would prove as damaging to the organization, and (b) if this was simply an anti-Blackwater crusade, Scahill could and would have found more than three sources, most assuredly. Given that this story helps no one and hurts many people and their agendas, I am more inclined to believe it, because no obvious group is pushing hard for strategic leaks.

With all this said, I do have a couple of questions and concerns. First, why could Scahill find only three people to talk about this? It is clear that the number of people who know the details on Blackwater's involvement in Pakistan is, by my interpretation of Scahill's reporting, in the low hundreds. Even if you account for people having serious incentives to not say anything, you'd have to think that one could find more than three people -- three! -- to speak candidly about this issue, especially behind the cloak of anonymity.

Second, there is disagreement amongst Scahill's sources on what exactly Blackwater is doing in Pakistan. According to the military intelligence source, it is only involved in the planning of raids and attacks, not their execution. The former Blackwater executive, by contrast, alleges that Blackwater personnel (along with Kestral personnel) frequently undertake counter-terrorist operations in conjunction with the Frontier Corps. This is a fairly important disagreement, for it speaks to the extent of the sources' knowledge. One of them is clearly wrong here, which begs an obvious question: what else could they be wrong about?

Based on all this, I am inclined to believe the big blocks in Scahill's story with a necessary dose of skepticism with respect to some of the details. This is not to impugn Scahill one bit; by all accounts, he is an excellent and meticulous journalist. But when dealing with matters of such secrecy, we can never be completely sure of what is true and what is not. Ultimately, it is a judgment call from each individual on how much they privilege which aspects of the story. Reasonable people can disagree here. But the bottom line, it seems to me, is pretty clear: that Blackwater's involvement in Pakistan, while perhaps imprecisely laid out in the article, is surely deeper and heavier than has been revealed thus far. Even if we don't know exactly what they're doing, we know with greater confidence that they're doing something -- something neither the Pakistani or U.S. government wants us to know.

In the next couple of days, I will tease out some of the implications of this finding with respect to the two countries involved.