Jul 03 2006
Liberal Contortions To Avoid Blame
The Libs are besides themselves trying to explain why their partisan Jihad against Bush has not culminated in exposing all Americans to heightened risk of a terrorist attack. All of this surrounds the blatant decision by the NY Times, as explained by Lichtbau on Reliable Sources, that in the minds of lefty journalists and editors the time had come to wind down the war on terror and re-assess all these ‘agressive’ anti-terrorism programs. As Lichtbau wrote in the NY Times this program was secret, was coordinated with many countries across the world who would rather not be seen as cooperating with the US on terrorism, and successful. This follows on the heels of the NSA program exposed by the NY Times last december which was focused on monitoring the communications of terrorists overseas. In the event someone in the US made contact with these overseas terrorists, the NSA passed this information to the FBI who then checked out the lead, and if the lead was a concern, went to the FIS Court to make that person the target of surveillance (where all communications could be monitored, not just the ones swept up in the overseas monitoring). Somehow the NY Times felt this program too was too much and decided to cripple it as well.
In order to rationalize the irrational, one has to go through some major logical gyrations which end up looking like a Escher drawing of physically impossible geometric relationships. Escher is a great example because an initial glance doesn’t allow the viewer to detect anything wrong. It takes a second to register the flaw and where it is. So too with the liberal alibi’s. The excuses put forth so far in this debacle are all flawed. Which illustrates at its base why the news media should not even be wrestling with the question to expose these programs.
Journalists are beyond ignorant regarding the current security threats we face, the programs in place to defend against those threats, and technology used in those programs. They create theories out of ignorant speculation to fill the gap in their knowledge and experience and attempt to claim this is all real and important. As we have seen, the only things they tend to get right are those details that can help terrorists.
The worst excuse is the laziest: the terrorists knew about the program so therefore nothing exposed increased the probability of attack. The arguments against this coordinated mantra (coming from the blindered hard left apologists for all things anti-Bush) are numerous, illustrating the desperation of the claim. Let’s explore these.
For one, the suggestion the terrorists knew is pure, unfounded speculation by the wannabe omnipotent one making the claim. Whoever makes this case is in the throws of a serious God Complex. No one knows if the terrorists had gotten lazy or, in a rush to meet a schedule, clumsy. As someone pointed out yesterday (sorry, cannot recall the link) criminals know about the hidden cameras and the wiretaps but they get nabbed by them all the time. Adding a gentle reminder during planning can make the difference in how the criminal deals with these. But while these people know in general, telling them were the cameras are and which phones are being monitored (AT&T vs. Qwest) gives them more than a general heads up.
More analogies abound. As Hugh Hewitt points out it is the difference between knowing sobriety and speed limit checks will be out and knowing where and when they will be up. I likened it to knowing Iraq was going to be invaded and knowing what the invasion plan was. In football it is like knowing the offense is going to run a play and knowing which play the offense is going to run. In medicine it is know that heart surgery can be done and knowing how to do heart surgery. The ‘how’ is much more important than the ‘what’.
The intellectually lazy media thrives on the idea that knowing ‘about’ something is sufficient for becoming an expert and a critique. Well it is not. Intelligence is like any other highly complex and technical field. It takes decades of one’s dedication to become an expert. I know a lot about Biology and Physiology (I have a BS in biology). A lot more than any journalist who is not from the medical profession. I know about heart surgery (seeing as it has extended the life of my father and many other family members). But I cannot be called an expert in the field or even pretend to be a critique of life long practitioners. The idea Keller and Lichtbau could pretend to know enough about intel and the programs they exposed to make life and death decisions for the rest of us is the epitomy of egotistical arrogance. I can abide an arrogant person if they can back it up. But in this case we are dealing with rank amatuers in the fields of counter-terrorism and daily threats.
The other bit of evidence that destroys the idea the terrorists knew so there is no harm is of course Hugh Hewitt’s great point – if the terrorists knew this would not be a successful program. This story pushed me to generate this post because of the fallacy in the logic that proves the program was not known by the terrorism, yet the person goes onto conclude that despite the evidence he himself brought up.
We have endured the painful revelations of the September 11 Commission and others about how the CIA, FBI, NSA and others had info that could have given us enough early warning to have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Given that record, the only sort of scoop that would have been shocking in June would have been a report that international bank data was not being used and that the Bush administration really wasn’t following the money of al-Qaida. That would have shocked us all – and Osama bin Laden, too. There seems to be little that evildoers could have learned from the latest report that they didn’t already know.
Notice how theargument is the only story that would be worth printing would be the failure to follow the money? But that was not the story was it? No, it was ‘how’ we follow the money. Al Qaeda may have been banking on the EU hesitancy to cooperate with the US to this level and had been keeping their transactions away from US institutions thinking our reach was limited. Now they know it is not so limited and they will take steps to go deeper and hide their actions better. The logic here is stunning still.
The other indication that the Bush administration was concerned was the fact they bent over backwards to convince the NY Times not to report on the program. They gave them unprecedented access (which will never happen again I am sure) and the NY Times even admits there was nothing nefarious they could see. The reasoning from the left is the government wants to hide their issues and tout their successes. Since the NY Times has reported this is such a success, they need to recognize the fact the Bush administration acted in opposition to their delusional motivations. Their paranoia as become so severe that the idea the program was truly important and therefore the administration was willing to sacrifice political gain that would come from its exposure never entered their warped minds. To them there is no such thing as a successful, classified program that would be kept secret.
Maybe it is from dealing with lefty idols like Bill Clinton and others who could never resist dropping some positive news regardless of the classified nature that these journos cannot fathom foregoing some fleeting fame for the national good. But that lack of vision and honor is no excuse to risk our lives either.
Why keep secret a successful program? It is obvious to anyone who is thinking about the goal and not driven by personal gain. Keller and Lichtbau are driven by personal gain and by delusions of granduer where they know more about terrorism, intelligence and the banking world than the 100’s or 1,000’s of experts that collectively work those fields to stop another 9-11. As I said before, the logical gyrations to avoid the obvious conclusions here are stunning in the depth of denial.
Lichtbau needs to explain how he knows his sources are not partisans aligned against Bush and not aiming for higher level positions in a Democrat 2008 administration. If there are 20 sources (and none of these are among the people who begged and pleaded with the NY Times to not cripple our national defenses) than there is still a cabal inside the beltway trying to initiate a political outcome in the coming elections. Anyone who risks programs and doesn’t focus on protecting this country (theoretically these sources’ jobs) to run to the press for partisan gain should go to jail for life.
Addendum:The NY Times has a piece today that is supposed to provide ‘understanding’ regarding the challenges of the poor whittle media has to deal with in deciding to uncover secret programs. But it really highlights the fact that the media’s drive to be first and break news (more profit$) tends to get people killed. Check out these examples of the media exposing secrets and killing 241 marines in Lebanon, and then the counter example where the loss to the media was a ‘scoop’.
KATHARINE GRAHAM, the publisher of The Washington Post who died in 2001, backed her editors through tense battles during the Watergate era. But in a 1986 speech, she warned that the media sometimes made “tragic” mistakes.
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.
But such cooperation can prove problematic, as her newspaper’s former editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, has recounted.
In 1986, after holding for weeks at government request a scoop about an N.S.A. tap on a Soviet undersea communications cable, The Post learned that the Russians knew all about it already from an N.S.A. turncoat named Ronald Pelton. NBC beat The Post on its own report.
Nothing lays out their priorities better. The risk of them going ahead is our lives, and the risk to them for not going ahead is they may get scooped. The article clearly shows why the media should not be allowed to decide what classified programs to expose. It is an attempt to show how seriously they take their job. But what is shows me is how deadly their arrogant mistakes can be to others. The media now has a self documented history of getting people killed by exposing details they did not understand, or appreciate the implications surrounding these details. Their ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination, as they have now reported in the NY Times.
“Journalists are beyond ignorant regarding the current security threats we face, the programs in place to defend against those threats, and technology used in those programs. ”
Ignorant? I don’t think so. “Your use of “ignorant” assumes the “journalists” are not acting maliciously. I think they know full well the consequences and risks. Even with the likelihood of putting millions in danger, their powerlust is so strong now that they are out of power, their malignancy knows no bounds.
How far is it from the WTC site to the NYT offices?
For one, the suggestion the terrorists knew is pure, unfounded speculation by the wannabe omnipotent one making the claim.
Yea, I’ve heard this said too many times, usually followed by the question: Well if everybody all ready knew it, why would the NY Times put it on the front page as ‘news’?
Saw Fred Thompson on This Week and he pointed out that, whereas the Supreme Court historically decides cases that have already been decided that come to it to decide if they were interpreted correctly, for some reason, in this Gtmo thing, they decided it beforehand. Almost unheard of. Wonder why the Court decided to be activist in this.
Sharpshooter,
I agree and will take it one step further. IF, and that’s a huge IF, ANY news organization can be proven to “conspire” with some leakers in the government to expose national secrets, then this IS treasonous behavior. The burden of proof is on the DOJ to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the case, but DAMMIT if they do prove it then they all should serve life sentences. As it is they should be charged with something like obstruction of justice in a criminal investigation. It was good enough for Judith Miller.
I just cannot understand why it isn’t happening (or doesn’t seem to be happening). While our government has been trying to come to grips with all the former leaks, more leaks have occured. This is VERY dangerous and totally unacceptable. ALL involved news organizations need to be called to account immediately before a federal grand jury and compelled to reveal their sources. There simply is NO excuse for further delay. Period!
Carol
Antecedents…
On my way out for a walk with the tyke, but before I go, I figured I'd point you to the latest in the string of defensive pieces by the NYT attempting to justify the leaking of classified info they knew to be legal, subject to appropriate oversigh…
sharpshooter and carol:
There is no inconsistency between AJ\’s characterization of journalists as deeply ignorant and your point that journalists are acting maliciously towards the Bush administration and, hence, the nation since the Bush administration is currently charged with protecting the nation. The point is that even if they were merely malicious, they would avoid the most egregious damage to national security, it is their very ignorance of what does and does not matter in national security and counterterrorism operations – combined with their arrogant view that they do know what is right – that leads them to such truly damaging actions.
I thoroughly agree they ought all be hailed before grand juries to determine who the leakers are, and, if there are sufficient predicate acts for conspiracy crimes, prosecuted for the conspiracies as well as for any violations of the espionage laws (including the 1950 additions). Convict them fair and square and then lock a few up and throw away the keys: pour l\’encouragement l\’autres.
Cato –
Absolutely! As in all criminal investigations, you can and must go after people who are obstructing justice. They did so against Judith Miller and I see no reason that they couldn’t and shouldn’t do the same here…and the reasons to do so are more compelling and crucial. I didn’t mean to convey that AJ’s take was missing anything, because it isn’t. The New York Times is a repeat offender and has WELL established a motive to continue its “war” on Bush and the national security. It is highly frustrating to me and many, many others that we are being undone by one leak after another with no end in sight. I will be extremely happy to be proved wrong and something happens later this week to change things for the better. We can all hope.
Carol
Loose Lips Indeed…
Buried in a post defending the Mainstream Media’s right to publish sensitive information, the New York Times (free reg. required) lets a particularly nasty cat out of the bag. That negligent reporting can, and HAS, gotten people killed in the past an…
On Our Unassailable Media…
Maybe printing stuff that “everyone knows about already” isn’t such a good idea after all. …
Has anyone heard the tape that’s over at Powerline yet? I must admit I haven’t heard this before, but if you want to check it out here’s the link:
“It is important for everyone to realize, I think, how low the level of discourse in the legacy media has fallen. So: listen and weep.”
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014584.php
…..
I seriously don’t know how these people sleep at night. They give themselves the right and obligation to tell us what they think we need to know regardless of how much danger it puts us in. Its REALLY scary that there are people who are actually PROUD of this “truth to power” crap. It’s high time we spoke TRUTH TO POWERLESS!
Carol
Since the Vietnam era, I believe there has been a perception by many in the media that disclosures of this sort increase their standing as guardians of the public interest. I also believe that the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction where in increasing number of the public now see this as counter to the public interest and even dangerous on a very personal level.
It is going to take some time to get through the heads of journalists that these actions are not appreciated. Their first step, a patronizing attempt at “educating” the public on why they think it is important and their condescending “justifications” for doing it, is to be expected. It is the same response we get from somone caught with their hands in a cookie jar they have been free to go into for a long time. So far their response has been “it’s what we do”, “they already know”, and “according to our calculations, the risk should be minimal”. Well, I don’t want the NYT increasing the risk of terrorist attacks on my community (and when I say community, I mean all my fellow Americans here in the US and abroad) at all, even minimally so. Because in this case the risk is infinately greater than the benefit. The benefit from the most recent stories is pretty much zero.
When you do a risk/benefit analysis, you want the benefit to be greater than the risk. Stated as a ratio or a division problem, you want the result to be less than 1. In this case, the result is infinity as we have published something that could cause future risk for absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the American public.
The professional journalism trade is living in a bygone era. Their decisions reflect a mindset of the 1960’s and early 70’s. Our society has changed, they have failed to keep up. If they don’t act as responsible citizens, I fear that the citizens will be forced to impose restrictions that might not be the best for anyone in the long term. The journalists are at risk of strangling themselves by abusing rights entrusted to them. In the long term, the marketplace will decide but that is a slow process.
When people are demonstrating outside the NY Times instead of outside the Pentagon and the NYT tries to pass it off as simply a great misunderstanding, some kind of failure to communicate, I will hope it comes to their minds how completely the tables have turned. I believe we are witnessing a fundamental sea change of a real grass roots uprising against an institution that has gone too far. Looking at modern polls that show the trust by the people of various institutions in this country, they might wish to take note that the positions of the media and the military are probably 180-degrees from where they were in 1970. People trust the military and distrust the media. They should be learning something from that.
A lib female reporter suggested in a Sunday interview that the US was “forcing” other nations to participate in the SWIFT program. Nothing could more accurately reveal the attitude these people have. The US, being obviously evil, is forcing the rest of the world to the dark side. It would never cross this clowns mind that much of the world shares our goal for the spread of democracy and the defeat of murderous nuts.
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,†Ms. Graham said.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional,
Well just let me say, I don’t think it is unintentional or intentional, I think it is “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” As in this here ‘scoop’ is worth it if all we do is lose a few American troops. I really think the NY Times and WaPo hate American and the military and do whatever it can to do it harm or make it look bad. Are they traitors, A resounding’ Hell yeah’
If the NYTimes had been around in 1775 ……
… these headlines are what you would have been reading.
Sad – but true.
On a related note, make sure to check out Thomas Sowell’s piece on the NYT’s revelation of how the US gov’t has gone about tracking financial transactions o…
Its time we recognised it and acted appropriately: ideas kill.
Bad ideas are killing innocents all the time. Not just Pol Pot’s ideas, but general ideas that nice people have.
For instance, why did we have all those ‘going postal’ massacres? Those school shootings? Copycat crimes, like copycat suicides, that should have been prevented by responsible reporters. The knowledge was there, but the scoop-driven sensationalist media culture drove reporting frenzies every time. Want ten million bucks of free publicity and worldwide name recognition? Look at Lee Harvey Oswald. Look at Thomas Hamilton (Dunblane), and watch ‘A Curretn Affair’.
Bad ideas, badly misguided ideas, drive our media culture. Maybe its time the people took an interest in preventing the next unnecessary massacre whether by foreign terrorist or domestic idiots.
The media now has a self documented history of getting people killed by exposing details they did not understand, or appreciate the implications surrounding these details.
Which people has the media gotten killed?
morning, all… and a hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!!!!
in regards to these spineless suckers of valuable oxygen that infest 43rd street and other media locales…
They are arrogant, self-anointed and unelected. If you haven’t yet, listen to the podcast stream from the powerline link.
At every junction, the meme exhibited by the leftists on the panel is very self-centered:
– presuming the Constitution protects “them” (press) and not a whisper that it protects “free speech”,
– conflating likely damage caused by these leaks with non-related events,
– turning this criticism of their treason into a whining “everytime-we-speak-the-evil-administration-wants-to-hurt-us” drone…
And they’re soooo smooth about it, always offering their responses in such a reasoned way, soothing, grammatically correct and sophisticated utterings are these… I can see where dhimmicrats, leftists and other let-the-government-run-my-life types can cozily follow these “elites” right over the cliffs – like the true lemmings they are.
Many valuable points in this wonderful strata-gram and in the comments – we need to remember that Journalists are wordsmiths, nothing more or less. They are not experts at anything, really… they’re just good at oscillating between baffling us with bullshit on the one hand, and blinding us with (their self-anointed, oh-look-at-me…) brilliance on the other.
The day when they reap what they sow cannot come soon enough for me.
CGVet58
(USN 1976-1984, USCG 1984-2000, LTjg Retired)
God has granted us Freedom, we owe Him our Courage in return
One might say from that instance in Lebanon, they could well have gotten our Marines there killed. Here is what people fail to understand:
Sure, it is reasonable to expect that we would be ATTEMPTING to intercept communitcations, but an enemy never knows how successful we might be at it. If you are exposing that we have been intercepting diplomatic traffic the enemy might know that all that traffic takes a single path or uses a single cable someplace and so they switch to some different means of communications. We might not have access to the new route the communications are taking. It could take us years to gain access again. Or they might change how it is encrypted.
Same with Osama’s satellite phone. We could have nabbed him long ago if the Washington Post hadn’t told him that we were monitoring his phone. He has since stopped using satelling phones. How many people have died as a result of allowing Osama to remain at large? Hard to know.
Finding a particular individual is very difficult. We have fugatives on our most wanted list right here in this country that are difficult for the FBI to find. When you are able to gain access to a communications channel used by someone you are looking for, it is more valuable than gold. When you lose access to that channel, you might never find it again.
Some people have what I consider to be an asinine vision of our intelligence community and think we can just waive a magic wand and find anyone we want instantly. Apparently our media thinks there is nothing wrong with exposing an intercept program. It is quite possible we could have been tipped off about about the Beirut bombing. We will never know.
I also believe our media has assisted current terrorist groups and have prolonged the war in Iraq.
Look, all terrorists are a bunch of brainwashed retards who believe children stories and are incapable of self-expressed ideas. Stop giving luncatic followers of failed ideologies more credit than they deserve for killing as many people as cancer kills every day.
You have more chances of being killed by lightning than even coming within 500 miles of a terrorist act. There are rapists, murderers, psychopaths and lunatics of all sorts in all societies and throughout the history of mankind. They’re just flies waiting to be squashed, a bunch of children with pistols compared to any organized army. There are easily over a thousand problems more pressing than those retards.
Stop being so terrorized for you precious little person all the time. There’s nothing more between bin Laden and Ted Kaczynski than a vast ocean. Get on with your lives, you’re wasting it being scared.
The idea that we should prosecute the Times sounds good. Trouble is, where are we going to find a jury where not one of the twelve suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome?
It only takes one juror to hang a jury.
Eye on the Watcher’s Council…
As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here. Here’s what …