Small Picture National Security Concerns Sometimes Go too Far, Damaging Larger American Interests — the CIA’s Alleged Bogus Vaccination Program in Pakistan

© 2011 Peter Free

 

14 July 2011

 

 

Playing nasty tricks on foreign innocents harms the United States’ main source of strength, its reputation for well-meaning integrity

 

The CIA and other American intelligence agencies increasingly have too much reign to play unsupervised games that ultimately defeat the United States’ larger purposes.

 

The Guardian broke the following tidbit a few days ago:

 

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

 

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

 

In March health workers administered the vaccine in a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Abbottabad called Nawa Sher.

 

The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given in three doses, the second a month after the first. But in April, instead of administering the second dose in Nawa Sher, the doctor returned to Abbottabad and moved the nurses on to Bilal Town, the suburb where Bin Laden lived.

 

© 2011 Saeed Shah, CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA, Guardian (11 July 2011)

 

 

The Red Cross was not happy

 

Politico reported that:

 

After revelations the CIA tried to use a fake vaccination program to secretly obtain DNA from Osama bin Laden’s kids, the agency is fighting back against charges that its ruse could endanger legitimate vaccination programs around the world by lending credence to anti-American conspiracy theorists.

 

Michael O’Brien, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pakistan, told the Associated Press that the CIA operation may make it more difficult for public health workers in Pakistan to administer vaccines in a country that has the highest rate of polio in the world.

 

“Anything that compromises the perception and impartiality of medical personnel undermines the activities of medical personnel everywhere, especially in places where access to health care is badly needed and security conditions for health care workers are already difficult,” O’Brien said.

 

But CIA officials dismissed the criticism, saying the hunt for bin Laden justified the bogus vaccine program.

 

© 2011 Elias Groll, CIA vaccination ruse under fire, Politico (14 July 2011)

 

 

Doctors without Borders summarized the questionable ethics of the CIA’s alleged stunt

 

President Unni Kanunakara, President of Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) said that:

 

The fake vaccination campaign constitutes a grave manipulation of the medical act.

 

The risk is that vulnerable communities anywhere, needing access to essential health services will understandably question the true motivation of health workers and humanitarian aid.

 

© 2011 Médecins sans Frontières, Alleged fake CIA vaccination campaign undermines medical care (14 July 2011)

 

 

Mistaking one tree for an entire forest

 

If this ruse-vaccination story is true, the CIA and the Obama Administration:

 

(a) underestimated the probable long-term negative consequences of the bogus vaccination scheme

 

and

 

(b) demonstrated (again) that American policy makers continue to be inexplicably blind to big picture geopolitical strategy.

 

Tactics (like the sham vaccination program) in search of an intelligent overall strategy are useless, or worse.

 

 

Obvious problems with the Administration’s perspective

 

The problem with the CIA’s defense of its alleged action (that the hunt for bin Laden made the scam vaccinations worthwhile) is that is focuses too narrowly.

 

Getting bin Laden was not the United States’ most important concern.  Managing global terrorism and the anti-Americanism that fosters it is.

 

Consequently, tactical ploys that further weaken America’s usually rightful claim to being a good guy in international affairs are self-defeating.

 

When these tactical ploys go on to harm international humanitarian efforts to make the world a less painful place, the United States comes out looking distinctly bad.

 

Being an international bad guy won’t win us friends.  And it will make our troops’ job even more difficult than it already is.

 

What was the Administration thinking?