Pretending a Name Is Still Secret – in the Name of the Cult of Secrecy
Jim Naureckas: Pretending a Name Is Still Secret – in the Name of the Cult of Secrecy ■ In retaliation for a US drone strike in Pakistan that allegedly targeted a religious school, killing six people, the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf accused both CIA Director John Brennan and the chief of the CIA's Islamabad station, whom it identified as Craig Osth, of "committing murder and waging war against Pakistan." The naming of the station chief was a significant development. As the New York Times (11/28/13) reported,
the move is expected to infuriate American officials, who had to recall a previous CIA station chief in 2010 after he was identified in the local news media, also in relation to a legal suit brought by anti-drone campaigners.[...] So Osth's name is out, and it's been out for a long time; concealing it from US readers doesn't make anyone any safer. But it does help bolster the cult of secrecy, which holds that information is to be kept from the citizenry on general principle. And it serves to shield from accountability an official who heads "one of the spy agency’s largest outposts in the world," in the Times' words, and whose influence in Pakistan "has sometimes eclipsed even that of the American ambassador."
Newser.com: Pakistani Party Blows CIA Station Chief's Cover