When National Security Leaks: Leaks Are Nothing More Than Political Opportunities
Clearly, some of those whom we have entrusted with our most sensitive national security secrets cannot be trusted with secrets. Somebody working from inside our most trusted intelligence agencies, using hand-chosen pieces of those secrets to wage a personal political war against their political opponents, is providing aid and comfort to America’s enemies in that process. Not long ago, this was a traitorous act of treason. Today, those who seek to capitalize politically on these leaks, call it patriotic dissent.
The question is: What do American voters call it?
How do American voters feel about people charged with the awesome responsibility of securing this nation and its citizens, who use Top Secret classified information for personal political gain at the expense of soldiers in combat and innocent American lives, both of which remain the target of international enemies here and abroad? How do they feel about politicians so desperate to regain political power, that they are willing to risk all in that endeavor?
What should one make of politicians who see these repeated security breached as only political opportunities and campaign tools? What trust should we afford news reporters willing to accept such politically motivated leaks, delivering them into the hands of enemies everywhere, rather than writing a headline that reads ''CIA Full of Traitorous Moles''?
Politicians are nothing if not opportunists these days. But shouldn’t there be a limit beyond which no politician can reach in their unrelenting quest for political power?
Schlep reporter Mark Mazzetti’s most recent political hatchet piece, Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat, which ignited yet another public firestorm of high-voltage partisan banter over the war on terror being waged largely in Iraq, was based upon a “leaked” fragment of Top Secret security data not even entrusted to many of the highest government officials. The story was not based on the entire report, or on the final collective findings of the report, but rather on a carefully cherry-picked fragment of a sentence from a nine page report.
Mazzetti was the once unlikely recipient of classified information that our enemies are not entitled to have. Not even most elected politicians are trusted with such sensitive data.
Consistent with his past performance, Mazzetti chose again to use this incomplete information, which was intended for “classified” eyes only, to continue to wage his personal political war against a president he does not like and a war on terror he personally does not support. In so doing, he has once again participated in an overt act that can only be described by reasonable people seeking national security, as treason. And again, the New York Times provided the platform from which he could launch another salvo in an all-out war against the war on terror.
A no-brainer, except for the brainless and the ill intended.
It’s easy to figure out why Bin Laden or other known enemies of the United States would support a CIA leaker, an irresponsible U.S. reporter, an anti-American news agency and the Democrats who defend them all as patriotic whistle blowers. But why would any American voter?
Have you seen a single Democrat incensed by the repeated leaking of classified information by people entrusted to keep such sensitive information secret in the interest of national security during a time of war and great threat? No, not one!
What we have seen is the repeated rush by Democrats to capitalize on these leaks politically, using every available sound-bite, no matter how devastating to national security efforts, no matter how misleading in presentation.
Not a single Democratic leader has called for an investigation into who is repeatedly divulging national security secrets from within our Top Secret agencies. Not one has called such political guerrilla tactics off-limits. Not one has mentioned just how insidious and deadly such leaks can be, for our troops in harms way and for innocent American civilians counting on their loose-lipped self-absorbed government to thwart the next 9/11. Not one!
Yet many Americans are prepared, even anxious to vote for people who see no problem at all with these enormously perilous security breaches -- Democrats who see such leaks as only campaign tools and political opportunities.
Democrats see nothing wrong with these leaks.
Bin Laden and others have used anti-U.S. propaganda written by U.S. citizens and reporters, published by U.S. news agencies and regurgitated by democrat politicians and disseminated in DNC Talking Points fax-blasts for several months now. And still, liberals cannot connect the dots between their anti-American rhetoric and the aid and comfort it provides our enemies.
No Democrat has come forward to silence these leaks. Every Democrat has embraced these continued leaks as nothing more than campaign propaganda tools to be used in their relentless quest to regain the political power than has eluded them since 1994.
Not a single Democrat has denounced the use of illegally leaked classified materials as a campaign tool. This should make every American want to vomit! Why doesn’t it?
Instead, it causes American leftists to crank up the propaganda machine and rush to cash-in on one of the most hideous acts against national security possible.
There are only three potential purposes for such leaks.
1) The people’s right to know what their government is up to.
2) A clear intent to aid, abet, and comfort enemies of the United States who most certainly benefit from both the information itself, and the in-fighting and division it causes in America .
3) As a political tool to be used by an opposition party currently out of power and desperately in need of campaign help.
The first purpose can be eliminated from this discussion because the people’s right to know has NEVER included a right to know Top Secret security data, plans, assessments, or measures, especially while at war with an ongoing threat that targets American civilians and American cities. The people do not have a right to top security secrets; ask Sandy Berger.
The second purpose serves only those in this country who believe we are wrongly at war with enemies who openly intend America and her citizen’s further harm. These people unfortunately exist in America today. We have heard them repeatedly refer to the current administration and members of our armed forces as “the real terrorists.” We have seen them repeatedly attack every intelligence operation intended to root out sleeper-cells here and abroad. We have seen them attack standard and humane interrogation measures intended to seek out information that could prevent events worse than 9/11. These people seek to undermine America’s war on terror and by default, national security. This purpose can only be called by reasonable people, an overt act of treason.
The third purpose should be obvious at this point. Someone inside our secret agencies, personally at odds politically with current administration policies and seeking to assist the opposition party in their efforts to regain control over U.S. policy making, has taken it upon themselves to illegally leak sensitive national security information that they believe will be helpful to their ideological partners. It’s happened so many times now, that there’s no missing the pattern or intent.
The pattern is always the same.
A trusted government employee first hand-picks a fragment of classified data believed to be unflattering to current administration policies, usually near an upcoming election. He/she then carefully chooses an ideologically friendly news reporter, in many cases Mark Mazzetti, who will help get the information out. A reporter like Mazzetti will then use his relationships with like-minded news outlets, such as the New York Times, to present an often completely misleading picture to Americans, who trust the U.S. press to deliver unbiased information upon which, public opinion, sentiment and campaign polling results will be formed.
The opposition party then grabs the headline, claiming it to be an unbiased story from the free-press that demands immediate attention and further investigation. Not into who leaked the classified information to begin with or why -- not into how a few particular news reporters seem to keep finding access to Top Secret data that not even high-ranking politicians have access to -- but rather into the secret data itself, calling for complete public disclosure of all related Top Secret security data, in search of any other fragments that could be turned into campaign sound-bites.
A few days later, pollsters will test the waters of public reaction, looking for a swing in voter sentiment. If that swing is there, they will continue to pound away at whatever headline caused the political winds to change in their favor. If it isn’t there, they will repeat the entire process over and over until the voter sentiment begins to swing in their political favor. They have done it several times in the last few years. The pattern is always the same.
Too many examples to ignore.
Abu Ghraib, the U.S. Treasury program, CIA interrogations, secret CIA prisons, Gitmo, NSA wiretapping, Iraq WMD intel, Niger yellow-cake, and now, this story suggesting that the war in Iraq has made America less safe because confronting international terrorism has caused international terrorists to fight back, in Iraq, not in America....All of them illegal leaks, all of them help our enemy and all of them written and exploited by American leftists in the press, the blogs and Democrats in congress.
The pattern and purpose is the same in all of these cases.
If instead of immediately seeking to capitalize upon illegal leaks of highly sensitive classified information, Democrats were seeking to shut it down by rooting out the moles responsible for the leaks and charging reporters and their editors who are more concerned with concealing the identity of the mole than concealing America’s secret defense initiatives, one could suggest that democrats can be trusted with national security. As it is, no way!
Clearly, those who seek political gain at the expense of national security can not be trusted with any power or information whatsoever, let alone national security, especially at a time of war.
If you can see it any other way, it’s only because you hope to benefit politically from these leaks yourself, just as congressional democrats do. That being the case, like today’s democrats, you are a part of the problem and can in no way be entrusted to become part of any solution.
In fact, collectively, all those who participate in or seek to benefit from these leaks are more dangerous to America than all foreign aggressors combined.
Where’s the responsibility in the press?
Democrats rightfully insist that CEOs and CFOs of U.S. corporations be held personally accountable for the honesty and integrity of their corporate reporting. What about the CEOs, CFOs, editors, and reporters of U.S. news agencies who knowingly publish both Top Secret security data and bogus propaganda headlines for world consumption, including our enemies?
All who participate or seek benefit must be treated as enemies of this state as well.
We are clearly fighting two wars at present. One against international terrorists and the rogue regimes who sponsor or support them, and one against an internal enemy, so consumed by their quest for political power that they are openly willing to use leaked secret security information as just another campaign tool.
People like this shouldn’t get votes in this nation. They should get the electric chair.
If the American people are stupid enough to vote them into power, then they deserve whatever follows. The problem is that the rest of us, especially our children, deserve much better!