The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, September 28, 2006
"Leakers and Liars"
The Editors of the New York Post have a most excellent Op-Ed up about the leaking of still more National Security secrets in an attempt to garnish negligible political "gain" (not to mention the willing collaboration the New York Times and Washington Post in the editing and publishing of this 180-degree misleading snippet of the overall NIE...). The published excerpt was so misleading that the small portion which the seditious press went overboard to trumpet is the complete opposite of the actual consensus conclusion of the NIE (which is why President Bush declassified that conclusion in response.)
All of this begs the question, for the umpteenth time: When is our Executive Branch--the FBI and the Justice Department--going to finally do something about prosecuting the leakers? And when is Justice going to step in and prosecute or sue the Publishers for extreme negligene. The damage done to a country trying to win a war--when faced with the irresponsibility of the papers knowingly printing these lies--is incalculable.
In any case, I have included below a representative portion of this superb Op-Ed. You can read the whole thing here (bold emphases below are my own):
President Bush, by releasing a declassified version of that controversial intelligence report on terrorism and the Iraq campaign, has put the lie to claims that even his own spies say toppling Saddam Hussein was a bad idea.
Yes, the report says that the war in Iraq is one of four factors that have energized the jihadists.
But it also maintains that the greatest threat to America and the West will come if the insurgents are seen to have won in Iraq - and that the way to prevent that is to defeat them, not to follow the Democrats' cut-and-run formula.
"Perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," the report notes, adding: "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."
Repeat: Showing the terrorists that America will stay the course until they are defeated will dissuade others from joining the jihadist movement.
[....]
Now, none of this was apparent in the weekend reporting on the intelligence survey found in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.
Of course not.
There are at least two possible reasons for this:
* The leakers cherry-picked the report, intending to undermine the administration's war policies, and the reporters bit - hook, line and sinker.
* Or the reporters - and editors - themselves collaborated in disseminating deliberately deceptive "news."
Either way, the original newspaper stories amounted to distribution of propaganda - witting or otherwise - that materially aided the cause of the enemy in time of war.
And somebody needs to be held to account for that.
You got that right...
All of this begs the question, for the umpteenth time: When is our Executive Branch--the FBI and the Justice Department--going to finally do something about prosecuting the leakers? And when is Justice going to step in and prosecute or sue the Publishers for extreme negligene. The damage done to a country trying to win a war--when faced with the irresponsibility of the papers knowingly printing these lies--is incalculable.
In any case, I have included below a representative portion of this superb Op-Ed. You can read the whole thing here (bold emphases below are my own):
President Bush, by releasing a declassified version of that controversial intelligence report on terrorism and the Iraq campaign, has put the lie to claims that even his own spies say toppling Saddam Hussein was a bad idea.
Yes, the report says that the war in Iraq is one of four factors that have energized the jihadists.
But it also maintains that the greatest threat to America and the West will come if the insurgents are seen to have won in Iraq - and that the way to prevent that is to defeat them, not to follow the Democrats' cut-and-run formula.
"Perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," the report notes, adding: "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."
Repeat: Showing the terrorists that America will stay the course until they are defeated will dissuade others from joining the jihadist movement.
[....]
Now, none of this was apparent in the weekend reporting on the intelligence survey found in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.
Of course not.
There are at least two possible reasons for this:
* The leakers cherry-picked the report, intending to undermine the administration's war policies, and the reporters bit - hook, line and sinker.
* Or the reporters - and editors - themselves collaborated in disseminating deliberately deceptive "news."
Either way, the original newspaper stories amounted to distribution of propaganda - witting or otherwise - that materially aided the cause of the enemy in time of war.
And somebody needs to be held to account for that.
You got that right...
