Posted on 11/03/2001 8:22:45 AM PST by pattycake
Secret means secret, stupid!
2001 David H. Hackworth
While watching the tapes of U.S. Army Special Operations warriors parachuting into Afghanistan on a dangerous raid, I felt a great surge of pride for the skill, professionalism and daring of our raiders.
What I didn't know was that before our troopers had completed their mission, The Washington Post and other members of the U.S. press had rushed to tell the world that our Rangers and Green Berets were operating in Afghanistan on a highly secret hit-and-run mission.
Had this happened on June 6, 1944, when the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions jumped into Normandy, Ike would've pulled the guilty parties' press credentials and put them on the next boat home. In chains.
Fifty-seven years later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was all bark and no bite when he blasted the Pentagon types who leaked the story and the reporters who colluded with them. In his tongue-lashing, he rightly said that they had violated "federal criminal law" and that they had no regard "for the lives of the people involved in the operation." But that was as far as it went.
Fortunately, our brave men accomplished their mission without taking any lumps. But the Pentagon snitches, much of the press and the retired brass – recycled as TV rent-a-pundits – are putting our warriors in jeopardy. We don't need loose lips telling our terrorist opponents what's going down. Bet your boots that whether they're hiding in caves in Afghanistan or somewhere in our country, they are tuned to TVs and are working their cell phones.
The war against the Taliban and al-Qaida isn't another Desert Storm. We're not fighting Iraq, where most of the opposing generals attended U.S. military schools and knew the drill, and where – almost nightly – Stormin' Norman could and did tell the world what his troops had done on D plus 1 and what was going down on D plus 42.
The difference between Desert Storm and the War Against Terrorism is that this time around, we're slugging it out with an unconventional opponent, and most of the tactical advantages are his. The terrorist is like the audience in a darkened theater, while we're the actors on the lighted stage. He sits shrouded in darkness, checking out our weaknesses and strengths, and, when his attack plan is perfect, as on Sept. 11, he strikes when his target is the most vulnerable and then runs. To help defeat him, both press corps and pundits must shut off the stage lights and stop telegraphing our plans to the enemy.
Not only are they giving classified information to our enemy, the press is too often relaying Taliban propaganda under the guise of "This is an unconfirmed report, but U.S. bombers struck a hospital in Afghanistan." If it's unconfirmed, then it must be handled responsibly and not treated as headline news until it's checked out. I find it mind-boggling that the networks and so many reporters are letting Taliban spin masters use them this way.
The mindless hemorrhage of secrets and these propaganda coups are driven, of course, by the insatiable appetite of 24-hour cable TV, which must be constantly fed by reporters and editors desperate for breaking news and bent on scooping the competition and maybe winning an Emmy. But that doesn't make it smart.
The media argues that the First Amendment gives them the right to keep the American people informed. But they need to remember that those brave men and women who defend America – some of whom jumped onto an airfield in the dark of an Afghan night – are the very Americans guaranteeing that right with their very lives, and then censure themselves accordingly.
I talk to hundreds of members of the armed forces every week and usually have a fair idea of the Big Picture. But I keep this info to myself when, in my judgment, I'd be endangering lives or giving away bits and pieces of a complicated game plan. The press needs to show the same common sense and caution and stop aiding and abetting the enemy's spymasters and spin machine.
Retired Col. Ben Willis, a combat-veteran paratrooper, says, "It's the people's right to know vs. the soldier's right to live."
We citizens don't need to know every detail of every military operation in this new kind of war. Nor should the media tell us and, hence, our enemy.
I have been reading so much crap coming out of the UK I felt I had to do something.
This says it all. Most of the "people's right to know" clammer comes from people who have never served in the military, are not related to anyone who ever served in the military and probably don't know anyone who ever served in the military. In other words, they are liberal leeches who want to enjoy the benefits of living in a free society but who, not only don't want to pay the price for liberty, denigrate and endanger those who are defending liberty for all of us.
I wish they would just shut up and let the Patriots get the job done so they can come home and be with their families too.
The press should be called on the carpet, but I have to think that they would not know most of this without some traitors in the military and/or the government feeding them the information.
Rumsfeld needs to find out WHO, and PROSECUTE them under the Federal laws he cited them as breaking.
unfortunately that doesn't make them any less dangerous to our troops
No one has the right to know about any operation/strategy/tactic or planning where our service men could be put at danger with loose lips, an article in a newspaper or a scoop on tv news!
Good security is managed on a basic concept, "The need to Know!", doctrine!
Even people with higher than top secret clearances operate under the "Need to Know" doctrine of managing secrets. Even if your ancestors came over on the May Flower and your ancestors were brave American Warriors in every war and battle, and your personal life is as clean as possible. A Top Secret Clearance only enables you to see and use what you need to know, when you need to know that data!
Most members of today's press are anti US military and probably at least 50% are anti American. Often their personal lives are/have been involved in illegal drugs with are obtained illegally and then used illegally. Most of them could not even qualify to get a simple confidential clearance based on a back ground check!
Any member of our military who leaks data that could harm our military personnel to a member of the press, should be tried and locked up for the rest of his life. If that release of data cost lives or endangered our people, he/she should be shot for treason! If that data is used by a newspaper or tv news group without checking to see if this is a serious leak, all involved should be arrested and confined until this war is over!
If we have a need to know, we will be told. If not we won't! The press has no need to know, and they should only be informed of what our military feels is now safe to be released!
It works WONDERS for stress!
The phoney excuse of the "right to know" is horseshit, it's just delusions of grandeur. The way they dropped the Juanita Brodderick and the Chinese money story (just a few examples) like a hot potato(e) highlights my point. I guess the public doesn't have a right to know if our President was a rapist who was selling our nuclear secrets to China.
As we know, much of that technology has and will further find it's way into unstable Middle Eastern and Asian governments. You think we have problems now? Wait until Islam aquires a few megatons. Doesn't the public have a "right to know" that the Clinton administration will be directly responsible for this?
Of course not, he was their icon mascott of baby boomer liberlism who couldn't be made to look bad no matter what the cost.
BTW, Mike Wallace is a mentally unstable, leftist, suck-ass POS. Someone ought to sew his friggin mouth shut. I guess if I was an accountant dealing with Bin-Ladens laundered money I wouldn't report him because of "client confidentiality". His idiotic and outrageous statem, not unlike the statement from David Weston shows how far up their anuses these people's heads are.
These people are seriously self deluded and dangerous.
You said it much better than I did. I agree with you on every point.
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