Markos Alberto Moulitas ZÚÑIGA "Worked" at the CIA in 2001

Cross-posted at MyLeftWing

By definition, the word “work” includes BOTH paid and unpaid “toil or labor” and efforts toward a goal.

Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA wants to "crash the gates" of the Democratic Party to change both the way that the party is run AND the people who are running it. Precisely because he seeks so much responsibility and authority, I believe it is very important that we know as much as we possibly can about Mr. Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA.

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA has said,

Obviously, playing in politics is a contact sport. It’s not for people who don’t like to be criticized or are afraid to be criticized. …[T]hat should be obvious.

Over the last few days, we have all become aware of Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’s speech to the Commonwealth Club, in which he acknowledges spending six months in training at the US Central Intelligence Agency. We have debated at great length what Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA did with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001. Some of us (including myself) interpret his public declarations to mean that he “worked” at the CIA in 2001 while others acknowledge that he "trained" there but strenuously deny that he "worked" there. Francis Holland Stole My Ideas On Markos and the CIA

Some interpret his statements to mean that Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA had been engaged in training and/or evaluation to become a CIA agent, but that the training and evaluation had not culminated in a formal and publicly acknowledgeable position within the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA's supporters have made allegations that saying that Kos "worked" at the CIA rather than saying that he "trained" there may make some MLW participants liable for libel. I strenuously disagree, based not only on my understanding as an attorney but also based on reason, (poetic) justice and common sense.

One thing is certain: Now, America has a much clearer idea of the kind of leadership this “gate crasher’ offers. For example, if there are panels on extraordinary rendition and Government-sponsored torture at YearlyKos, with the Democratic candidates present, then Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA may perhaps more knowledgeably address these issues from the perspective of the CIA, based on some of his training there.

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA's supporters and enablers will insist that this is not true, although it obviously is true. And so they will insist that this information is too prejudicial to be made public, because publicizing this information will inevitably hurt Kos politically. And here is where the advocacy for the censorship inherent in dictatorship enters the conversation. See "On the Diaries of Francis Holland", an MLW anti-censorship diary. Regarding articles about Kos' contacts with the CIA, see also "An Apology to Markos from an MLW Member," a pro-censorship diary with pro-censorship comments posted at DailyKos.

The question of whether Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA "worked" or "trained" at the CIA depends either both upon our own common sense understanding of the words "work" and "train" as well as the various definitions of these terms as commonly used by the US Government and in other contexts.

A lot of people believe it is very important whether Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA worked at the CIA in 2001. Within three days of the article published last week, at least twelve progressive blogs reported as news the fact that Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA spent time at the CIA. (See partial list of blogs and clippings reporting on this issue in the footnotes here.)

Although some supporters of his believe his time spent at the CIA is a non-issue that can easily be explained away, nonetheless this is an issue of great interest to many people who believe that the CIA is an agency whose goals and methods make participation there, in any form, inconsistent with being a “progressive.” This is why we are having such a great debate over whether Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA worked at the CIA or not. Because if he did “work” there, then many people will conclude that he is unfit to lead progressives in any way, shape or form.

Our democratic political system gives each of us the prerogative and responsibility to decide what we think is important, giving each fact the weight that we, in our individual judgment, believe it is due. So, this question cannot be resolved simply by resolving not to discuss it. It can only be resolved by finding out the facts and applying to these facts the various definitions, including our own, of the word “work,” so that each of us can weigh these factors as s/he will.

When one listens to Moulitsas’ ZÚÑIGA’s comments at the Commonwealth Club, it is quite clear to me that he “worked” at the CIA within the normal meaning of that word. He says that he went there because he was “unemployed, underemployed, unemployed (…) Kinda like, in between jobs, doin’ a little contract work and . . . kinda (…) in this really horrible netherworld of ‘will I make rent next month’ and . . .”

When people are “unemployed” they look for “work,” because only obtaining “work” resolves the problem of being unemployed.

The alternative logic makes no sense to me. If we assume that Moulitsas ZÚNIGA did NOT get paid for his work at the CIA, then we must also assume that he utterly failed to address the foremost reason for which he went there in the first place – to “make rent next month. (Emphasis added.)

Another way to understand whether he worked at the CIA is with reference to Government and other websites that discuss CIA training. The IntelligenceCareers.Com website offers some useful guidance concerning whether it is fair and correct to say that Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA “worked” at the CIA during his six months there in 2001. It says,

The CIA Summer Internship and Student Trainee (Co-op) programs provide students an opportunity to see first hand the role the CIA plays in supporting U.S. foreign policy. Students selected participate in substantive work with assignments commensurate with their academic training.

So, do trainees CIA trainees, as was Markos Moulitsas for six months in 2001, do “work” when they are in training? Do they “work”? Although Moulitsas never mentioned his time spent at the CIA before last year, and did not include in his public resumés, he has not denied that he “worked” at the CIA, but his supporters and defenders have.

The Federal Government offers many training programs and considers trainees to be “working” during their training time, even when the do NOT get paid for their efforts. Here is a page from the CIA’s own website that highlights “paid” “training” offered by the CIA.

Outside of government, in the biotechnology field, Trainees work side-by-side with some of the leading scientists in the world in an environment devoted exclusively to biomedical research.”

So, did Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA “work” at the CIA? The word “work” has many different definitions, with one Princeton University online dictionary offering 27 different definitions of the word “work,” of which only nine are relevant to this discussion.

Let’s look at what Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA says he did at the CIA to then determine whether it meets any one of the nine definitions of work offered by the online dictionary. If his involvement meets ANY of these definitions, then we must conclude that he DID “work” at the CIA “in a way.” If his involvement arguably could meet any one of the definitions, then we may need more information to decide whether his involvement actually meets ALL of the relevant definitions.

At this point, the only proof we have of what happened is Markos ZÚÑIGA’s own recorded interview at the Commonwealth Club, combined with publicly available documents about the function of CIA training and training programs in general. I don’t think it is wrong to reprint and quote verbatim from public speeches, and so I do so now for the purpose of examining with particularity exactly what Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA said, with the hopes of understanding exactly what he meant.

Here is my verbatim transcription of Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’s entire discussion at the Commonwealth Club of his 2001 CIA involvement:

QUESTION: Not long ago, liberals loathed the Central Intelligence Agency as the enemy of democratic governments and they installed dictators around the world, and these days you read the papers and people on the Left are rallying to the defense of the CIA and are indignant when the CIA is politicized. How did this come about, that suddenly liberals are championing the CIA:

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA'S ANSWER: I don’t know. You know I.

QUESTION: Do you find it stranger or ironic, this sudden love for the CIA?

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA'S ANSWER: You know . . . coughs . . . I think a lot of the people that did have problems with the CIA, I mean it was a very vocal minority.

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA'S ANSWER: You know . . . coughs . . . I think a lot of the people that did have problems with the CIA, I mean it was a very vocal minority. I think most people really didn’t think about it all that much. Right? It wasn’t really on their radar screens, ah, in the way that now it is, because now we are in this huge war, and it was the CIA that was warning the Administration against invading because, there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Here’s a little secret I don’t think I’ve ever written about: But in 2001, I was unemployed, underemployed, unemployed. You know I was in that . . You all have been there “dot com” people? Kinda like, in between jobs, doin’ a little contract work and . . . kinda. So, you know. That’s where I was: in this really horrible netherworld of ‘will I make rent next month’ and . . .

So, I applied to the CIA and I went all the way to the end, I mean it was to the point where I was going to sign papers to become Clandestine Services. And it was at that point that the Howard Dean campaign took off and I had to make a decision whether I was gonna kinda join the Howard Dean campaign, that whole process, or was I was going to become a spy. (Laughter in the audience.) It was going to be a tough decision at first, but then the CIA insisted that if, if I joined that, they’d want me to do the first duty assignment in Washington, DC, and I hate Washington, DC. Six years in Washington, DC [inaudible] that makes the decision a lot easier.

[ . . .] This is a very liberal institution. And in a lot of ways, it really does attract people who want to make a better, you know, want to make the world a better place . . . Of course, they’ve got their Dirty Ops and this and that, right but as an institution itself the CIA is really interested in stable world. That’s what they’re interested in. And stable worlds aren’t created by destabilizing regimes and creating wars. Their done so by other means. Assassination labor leaders . . . I’m kidding!

[ . . . ] I don’t think it’s a very partisan thing to want a stable world. And even if you’re protecting American interests, I mean that can get ugly at times, but generally speaking I think their hearts in the right place. As an organization their heart is in the right place. I’ve never had any problem with the CIA. I’d have no problem working for them . Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA at the Commonwealth Club.

Certainly, if his involvement meets ANY of the commonly accepted definitions of the word “work,” then it is not misleading or unfair to say that Markos Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA worked at the CIA while he was in training there, based on what he said in his interview at the Commonwealth Club.

But, for those who are not convinced that Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA did work at the CIA, we compare the standard dictionary definitions of the word “work” to Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’s own description of what he did at the CIA, paragraph by paragraph, giving Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’s credibility every benefit of the doubt.

Here is the definition that Merriam Websters Online Dictionary provides for the word, “work”:

Main Entry: 3 “work”:

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): worked /'w&rkt /; or wrought /'rot/; work•ing

Etymology: Middle English werken, worken, from Old English wyrcan; akin to Old English weorc

transitive verb

1 : to bring to pass : EFFECT Not applicable.

2 a : to fashion or create a useful or desired product by expending labor or exertion on : FORGE, SHAPE b : to make or decorate with needlework; especially : EMBROIDER

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA said at the Commonwealth Club, “I applied to the CIA and I went all the way to the end, I mean it was to the point where I was going to sign papers to become Clandestine Services.” If Markos “worked” on getting invited to become a CIA agent during his six months training with the CIA, then he succeeded in his “work. (…)

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA said at the Commonwealth Club, “It was going to be a tough decision at first, but then the CIA insisted that if, if I joined that, they’d want me to do the first duty assignment in Washington, DC, and I hate Washington, DC. Six years in Washington, DC [inaudible] that makes the decision a lot easier.”

So, if the “desired product” of his time at the CIA was to win an invitation to work there permanently, and that is why he was “expending labor or exertion” toward this goal when he was participating in the training program, then he did “work” at the CIA within the meaning of definition (2). He “worked” during the training program on the “desired product” of being invited to join the permanent CIA workforce and he says that he achieved that goal.

7 a : to carry on an operation or perform a job through, at, in, or along (the peddler worked the corner) (a sportscaster hired to work the game)

b : to greet and talk with in a friendly way in order to ingratiate oneself or achieve a purpose (politicians working the crowd) (worked the room)

8 : to pay for or achieve with labor or service ("worked my way through college") ("worked my way up in the company") Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA “worked his way through” the required material of the training program and “worked” his way into an invitation to join the CIA as a permanent employee.

9 a : to get (oneself or an object) into or out of a condition or position by gradual stages b : CONTRIVE, ARRANGE (we can work it so that you can take your vacation)

E.g. 'Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA worked on completing CIA training and learning the materials of the training program.'

Kos 'worked his way' into an offer of permanent employment at the CIA.

Certainly, there are those who will say that this discussion of Kos and the CIA evinces an intent to engage in Kos-bashing." But, is "Kos-bashing" always wrong? The word "bash" is really just a synonym for "criticize strongly and vigorously." Many Kos supporters would argue that, “because Kos is always right, therefore bashing Kos is always wrong.” The corollary to this premise would be that, “If bashing Kos is always wrong, then Kos must always be right.”

However, NOBODY is always right.

A dictator is one who rules by fiat and force rather than by force of reason, like the oligarchies that enforce their power through the use death squads, torture and other intimidation. All too often, such dictators are supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.