I agree with you.
You're absolutely right!
Freedom of speech brings responsibilities with it, and as I said before, the American press has shown itself to be thoroughly untrustworthy with that responsibility. Some do not think that is a problem in war, but I do.
I see this damage caused by the inclination by a "free press" to give intelligence to our enemy as an insidious erosion that is going to eat away at the riverbanks of our national resolve and ability to wage this war until they begin crumbling and falling into that river. If someone don't think information like this is intelligence to an enemy, then they don't understand what information is needed by an enemy to defeat us.
As surely as the media caused the defeat of the USA in Vietnam by relentlessly sapping our national will to fight and sowing division amongst the citizenry with disinformation (Tet Offensive as primary example), it will cause the defeat of our cause in the Middle East with the incessant drumbeat of negativity.
I lived through it once, and vowed never to be a submissive party to it again.
Some people think it is a minor thing, and that the NYT or LAT are free to air whatever information about anything they can glean from their "unnamed sources", even if it means the loss of American lives and a prolongation of the conflict.
I think it is one of the greatest dangers to the Republic, and more so because the bar has been raised so high that there is no such thing as treason anymore. The founders of our nation had a good reason for placing the bar of treason very high, in order to prevent misuse of the charge. But when Jane Fonda and others went to North Vietnam and gave aid and comfort to the enemy without repercussions, that set the bar so high that nothing can go over it.
And here we are today with the NYT giving information to our enemies about how we gather intelligence from them, how we monitor their communications and so on, allowing them to make successful adjustments to diminish our available intelligence. That means my fellow citizens in the military are going to have to stay in the battle longer with less intelligence, and cost me more taxpayer dollars, not to mention the loss of life that is inevitably going to occur in the civilian populace in this country.