Friday, June 23, 2006

"The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war."

Andrew C. McCarthy on Terrorist Finance Tracking Program on National Review Online:

The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets — which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community — with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.

Bluntly, officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sometimes I wonder if they want to force the government's hand so that they can act like Judith Miller and play the martyr or act all oppressed as if they were some Chinese dissident or something.

If they keep it up and there is a successful attack in this country and people have to wonder if some loud mouth partisan civil servant or some self serving journo helped the terrorists...they may want police protection.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I wonder if they want to force the government's hand so that they can act like Judith Miller and play the martyr or act all oppressed as if they were some Chinese dissident or something.

Well, underneath the business suits they're artists, you know.

So, half-baked Marxism plus visions of misunderstood Impressionists hacking with consumption in their Parisian fleabag garrets. Oh, and crusading film noir reporters with the whiskey bottles on their desks. And the young Che, up in the mountains.

It's all so romantic, you see.

It may take a nuke, or some other major event that can be traced back to the actions of a specific reporter or newspaper policy, to put an end to this kind of thing. But I'm afraid it will have to be something pretty big.

gumshoe said...

"It's all so romantic, you see.

It may take a nuke, or some other major event that can be traced back to the actions of a specific reporter or newspaper policy, to put an end to this kind of thing. But I'm afraid it will have to be something pretty big."

even that wouldn't/won't do it,skook.

as you said:

"It's all so romantic, you see."

they'd simply redouble their efforts.

vnjagvet said...

Terrye has hit on the "reverse english" problem.

How much of this stuff is bait, how much is "real" leaking for the purpose of undermining the war and how much is trying to get out information to deter the use of the monitored networks is probably known to few people. None of those few are the press.

That is what makes this interesting.

Reminds me of some of the D Day capers some of which later became pretty interesting books like The Man Who Never Was.