Can You Trust a Terrorist?

 Malcom Gladwell discusses the book written by John Rizzo which is an autobiography. They mainly talked about a terrorist that he discussed which was an asset when Rizzo was part of the CIA. They said that the terrorist was highly reliable and didn’t want money because he was doing the job for his conscious and it was an act of expiation. Gladwell talked to a reporter named Tim Weiner about his experience with the CIA. Weiner talked about how he went to Afghanistan and before he left contacted the CIA. The CIA did not help him but when he got back from Afghanistan they contacted him and brought him in to talk to a KGB mole named Aldrich Ames. They talked about why we trust the CIA. They had a very good point about how if the CIA were to mess up we would turn to the press to cover exactly what happened. The Cia had worked with the main terrorist by the name of Al Pacino. They talked about how he had done many terrorist attacks and they did not do a background check on him because they were providing them with valuable information. The information he provided was to find another dangerous terrorist by the name of Carlos the Jackal. They talked about a D- notice in the United Kingdom and how in the UK the government can tell the press to not publish something that will put a red flag on them because it will damage national security. The only problem was that in America there is the law freedom of the press. What the government would then need to do would tell enough information about the secrets from the CIA and then they would then have to trust the editors to take the information seriously. Weiner was then given a call about the CIA and then Weiner met with the director of counter terrorism and got specific information that he was not supposed to disclose to get anyone hurt. Weiner wanted to reveal that Al Pacino had a brutal resume that had two bombings in 1984 that inured Americans. Al Pacino was the story from Wieners perspective because the CIA did not tell congress about Al Pacino. Rizzo was then told that the asset was flabbergasted with the evidence that was found out about him. A New York Times story ran about Al Pacino giving information to the CIA and it made the front page. Later on, Al Pacino was then tracked down and killed by his terrorist group. What this says about trusting a terrorist is that they will give you valuable information but they cannot be trusted 100%. They are no solutions when trusting a terrorist because you can make lives worse. What this says about power is that when you are more powerful you have greater responsibilities because you are in control of what happens.