Broadcasting to the Enemy --- Sensitive Allied Military Information

"Core Competency of Allied Military History" | March 6, 2003 | men and women who have risked everything

[First_Salute]

Enthusiasm for military topic(s) is understood, but please bear with this:

Sensitive military information is being posted to FR, but it should not be posted, no matter how much it may be found elsewhere in public. The identification of Allied military units, their whereabouts, and their destination are of great aid to the enemy --- and the enemy is much more than Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The information being posted to FreeRepublic, may be on the Internet and so-called public knowledge, but every instance of a retelling of it, is the reminder to a bad guy who overlooked it.

The most difficult areas of intel gathering are the most rewarding: the finding and fitting together of the little pieces. ("Torture," by the way, is not required to get information. What is needed, is a thorough collection of accumulated, related information about the bad guy and his axes. Many captors are stunned to find on the desk of their interrogator, a thick folder with their name

on it and their credit history inside, where they shop, their medical history, etc.)

Each sensitive piece that is posted to FR, fits a puzzle for some bad guy doing the accumulation for our enemies. They are watching this online forum in particular, because it has become a centerpiece of collected information. (The Red Chinese --- and their subscribers --- could not be more thrilled by this forum's interest in military affairs.)

Sometimes, there may be nothing of the details in the story posted here by a forum member, of any interest, initially to the bad guy; but something about the story can be all that is needed to help the bad guy to look further for something else --- or help the bad guy ask a certain question during interrogation --- the information aids the enemy by "ringing a bell."

A weapon of the bad guy's, that is the most commonly used --- what the American public thinks, is incidental, public information --- is what aids the enemy interrogator to weave a most credible story and thereby begin to break down our people held in captivity. The names of relatives, of children, what their schedule is at school --- these things will make a man or woman talk quite a lot --- and the bad guy can convince one trooper of how much another trooper talked.

Such military information posted here --- about who we are at present, where we are at present, what equipment we have at present, and then where all that is headed --- becomes a lever with which to destroy the morale of our troops.

The whiff of betrayal has a devastating effect. You can see already, while our men and women are still relatively secure from combat, the negative effects resulting from the "liberal media's" incessant support of, for example, the Hollywood Friends for Communism.

Not to mention that "the leftists" would love to provide every tidbit of information to our enemies that they can, and I'm sure that many, here at FreeRepublic, would prefer to have a clean concious by not having been helping Hillary Clinton & Co.'s Marchers for Communism, to gleefully pass along the information.

Please do not.

Sincerely,

First_Salute

[First_Salute]

Thank you.

[grumple]

grump bump

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[DugwayDuke]

Is it your intent to censor any information that can be found on public sources such as radio, television, the internet, the local newspaper, or any other "public source"?

I await the posting of the FreeRepublic Security Classification Guide that will include the definitions of "sensitive military information".

[First_Salute]

The political leftists in this country include the culture-dominating N.E.A., the vast, left-wing teachers' union.

That union's membership, is riddled with leftist functionaries who are aiding the enemy. They ridicule the parents of children, before an entire class, to name just one recent example.

What is there to inhibit these "teachers" from copying the school's records of a child whose father is captured by Iraq or by North Korea?

Not much.

[First_Salute]

Perhaps you misread the request which I passed along.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[DugwayDuke]

I read your request.

You said don't post "sensitive military information". While you did make somewhat of an attempt to define that term, I've seen multiple instances where where the examples your provided (unit identification, troop strengths, etc.,) have been released on public media. In fact, in many cases, the media have been relying upon public information releases passed out by the military. Clearly, this information falls within your definition of "sensitive military information".

Quite frankly, it is absurd to censor information that has already been transmitted by radio, televison, or other forms of the media. Do you not think that Iraqi intelligence watches CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc? Do you really think Iraqi intelligence would give much confidence to an anonymous poster with an obscure freerepublic screename as a source of vital intelligence? We can only hope that they would be reduced to such levels.

Taken at face value, your request would mean that no information or debate on Operation Enduring Freedom or the impending War on Iraq may be posted or discussed. I'm sure that is not your intent, but I'm sure you realize that most freepers have not the foggiest idea of what might be considered sensitive information. Are you planning on posting a classification guide for them? IF so, what will the classification of that guide be?

[Always A Marine]

Sensitive military information is being posted to FR, but it should not be posted, no matter how much it may be found elsewhere in public. The identification of Allied military units, their whereabouts, and their destination are of great aid to the enemy --- and the enemy is much more than Saddam Hussein's Iraq... The information being posted to FreeRepublic, may be on the Internet and so-called public knowledge, but every instance of a retelling of it, is the reminder to a bad guy who overlooked it.

With all respect and deference to your motives for your post, I have to take issue with your assertion that "sensitive" information is being posted on FreeRepublic. We should not flatter ourselves -- the enemy is not looking here to glean questionable tidbits of information on unit movements. He instead finds voluminous movement and order of battle details already compiled on the websites of several think tanks. For confirmation, he also reads the local papers near major military bases which describe the specific units as they are deploying, and continue with human interest stories about the families of deployed units. Why should he come here to decipher idle chatter when he can so easily get hard facts elsewhere? He does not.

It might make us feel important to think that our rehashing of media-published information constitutes "loose lips" chatter, but that is actually hogwash. All that Saddam's intel can learn from FreeRepublic is that we don't like him very much.

[First_Salute]

"identification of Allied military units, their whereabouts, and their destination"

Was the concern.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[First_Salute]

Thank you.

[Cicero]

Your heart is in the right place, but it's absurd to say that we shouldn't discuss public information from widely available news sources.

The iron rule is NEVER to talk about matters that Freepers know from personal observation, since so many Freepers are in or involved with the military.

I would also say that one should be careful about what you say concerning the interpretation of the news. But we all know that there's a lot of disinformation out there, and our speculations don't really tell an enemy anything he couldn't figure out for himself.

Most Freepers have pretty good sense about these matters, and in the many years I've visited here I can't remember seeing anyone violate the basic rules of secrecy. Of course I may have missed something, or the Moderators may have removed it. If you think you see something like a genuine security breach, tell the Moderators. Ask them to have a look and remove it if they judge it to be potentially dangerous.

[First_Salute]

God Bless you.