[GAB-1955]

I don't think your response is appropriate. I know Bill Gertz ; he's not your liberal lefty writer. Furthermore, don't you think the enemy already knows about this tactic?

Back in World War II, Ernie Pyle was writing about flying in American dive bombers, including details about tactics. This is the same thing.

We are not a dictatorship, despite the claims of our opposite numbers on DU. We have a right to know how the war is going and what's being done. The military itself provides hundreds of postings per week about unit deployments and tactics and the opinions of senior commanders. Gertz and Scarborough probably got this story from the military.

So, before you say "the media is giving it all away," start thinking "What are they giving away and why?" Of course, that's not easy to do when your mind is prejudged.

[Doctor Raoul]

Furthermore, don't you think the enemy already knows about this tactic?

Maybe, maybe not before publication.

Concur Gertz is one of the good guys, however, the bad guys were supposed to believe that they a "blue on blue" problem with that "spray and pray" tactic. Now that it's out there, they won't attribute even a real "blue on blue" engagement to their own folks if they're aware of this story.

Question is, how well will this information get distributed to all the bad guys.

Personally, I'm not happy they published this one.

[DainBramage]

Why are you insulting me? You tell me one single advantage that the military would have releasing this info?

Bill Gertz is a pentagon reporter and no more. He gets it wrong just like anybody else. When you start taking one mans information as being solid gold no matter what IMO you've made a big mistake. Go to the bottom of that column itself. They are apologizing for the mistakes on the last column.

KMA is my prejudgment on you.

[FReepaholic]

...on't you think the enemy already knows about this tactic?...

That's been used a lot to justify revealing secrets.

Heard it a lot during the Cold War: "Don't you think the Russians already know...?"

Well, the truth is: THEY MIGHT NOT!

In fact, odds are they DON'T!

At least not until now.

[wgflyer]

"Ernie Pyle was writing about flying in American dive bombers, including details about tactics. This is the same thing"

Not exactly. Ernie was in the foxholes with the troops and everything Ernie wrote went through rigid military censors. It would be hard to say that today's media suffers the same inhibition. It really isn't the same thing. We have much more trust in Bill Gertz than your standard lib reporter, but I must admit that when I read this my first thought was, "This is interesting, but why am I seeing it in print?"