Posted on 10/12/2001 4:13:59 AM PDT by spycatcher
Now that Operation Enduring Freedom has exploded into a full-blown shooting war, journalists and their official sources urgently must clam up about sensitive military and intelligence matters. Media coverage of the September 11 massacre investigation and subsequent allied response has been a rich feast for news junkies. Unfortunately, terrorists and their state sponsors may be enjoying this banquet, too.
The Associated Press's Jocelyn Noveck last Friday quoted Alexis Debat, an author, teacher, and former French Defense Ministry employee. Citing his own judicial sources, Debat said authorities who raided the apartment of Kamel Daoudi found a notebook with Arabic writing that “seemed to be a code book." French police suspect that Daoudi, a 27-year-old computer student, may belong to an Islamic extremist ring tied to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network. Daoudi and company allegedly were plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Debat said “it would be a major breakthrough" if investigators could use the notebook to decipher bin Laden's communications including” messages they already may have intercepted.”
Thanks a million, Alexis and Jocelyn. The Associated Press is no fly-by-night outfit. Noveck's story reached the AP's 15,000 subscribing media organizations worldwide. Bin Laden, who is nothing if not connected, certainly now recognizes that “the Great Satan" knows of that notebook, since Debat said U.S. intelligence has been told about it. Bin Laden now can change codebooks or instead transmit useless disinformation. Either option creates work for the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and Scotland Yard.
The AP also provided data for a map in the September 21 Wall Street Journalthat specifically identified airfields, terrorist training bases, and even housing units in Afghanistan that allied forces might destroy. This information may have given the Taliban and bin Laden 16 days to evacuate themselves and their equipment.
“We've held back stories before under very select arrangements," AP spokesman Jack Stokes told me. But with war blazing, AP's writers still follow “the same guidelines that they always publish under: We have information, we put it in context and we publish it.”
Compare Debat's and the AP's irresponsibility to Winston Churchill's decision not to clear Coventry, England before a November 14, 1940 Nazi bombing raid. An evacuation would have alerted Adolph Hitler that Britain had cracked his code. Indeed, Poland handed British spies a clone of a German Enigma code machine in July, 1939. London and Washington thus could read Berlin's instructions to its Wehrmacht tank commanders, Luftwaffe pilots and U-boat captains throughout World War II. In one of the 20th Century's toughest decisions, Churchill sacrificed Coventry to the greater good of foreseeing Nazi actions.
Back here, NBC News revealed October 1 that an overseas intelligence service intercepted a September 9 phone call in which bin Laden told his adoptive mother, “In two days, you're going to hear big news, and you're not going to hear from me for a while." That's probably the last time he'll use that phone. NBC's David Bloom reported last Friday that “in classified briefings, lawmakers are told that tunnels, tankers, and power plants plus past targets like the Pentagon and CIA are of particular concern" for new terrorist assaults. “Among those specifically singled out: the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and giant dams such as Hoover and Grand Coolie." Any terrorists who might have stepped into an FBI trap at Grand Coolie now may go elsewhere.
Bloom added: “One person inside that classified briefing room told NBC, ‘We are very much at risk.’" Why not streamline things by broadcasting secret briefings on C-SPAN? Until then, stripping a few loose-lipped officials of their security clearances would send a strong pro-confidentiality message.
The stakes here could not be higher. U.S. and British soldiers are at risk right now. Innocent civilians in the civilized world could be slaughtered instantly by terrorists eager to shatter our resolve. As much as our enemies despise our culture, they and their supporters see our news programs, papers, and websites. Those should be the last places they find useful information. Reporters and their sources can discuss such interesting details in their memoirs once we win the war on terror. Meanwhile, zip it.
What makes this even more remarkable is that Churchill had a favorite neice living in Conventry,and he refused to even warn her and her family to evacuate "because it wouldn't be fair to the other families I can't warn." I never did find out if his neice died in the bombing raid or not,but it has been said that the Nazi bombing of Coventry is the reason Churchill approved of the fire-bombing of Dresden.
You're either an American, or something else.
False choice.
The broadcasting of damaging info during war does NOT represent liberty. It represents sedition
I tend to be wary of 27-year-old undergrads as a rule...most are Lefties on the 8-10 year plan and apparently others are anti-American terrorists. In this instance, it appears we've got ourselves a Two-Fer!!
FReegards...MUD
BTW...for any of y'all who joined the military first and used it to go to school afterward, I humbly apologize for the stereotyping. Me? I was in-and-out of undergrad in four years...parents wouldda cut me off otherwise...LOL!!
SHEEESH...you've got to be kidding!! Apparently, you don't have any loved ones in the Armed Forces presently SECURING OUR LIBERTY!!
MUD
Thanks for that interesting bit of history, my FRiend. To quote Carson, "I did not know that."
FReegards...MUD
I called them back and asked for the clown who had previously called my house. I promised him an exclusive interview guns and all. When he showed up at the farm, I took him for a walk down to my barn. As he questioned me about the campaign, I deftly manuvuered him to a real muddy spot just beside an electric fence. Knowing a city slicker wouldn't know what the fence could do. Sure enough as we slogged toward the barn he put his hand on the fence and said, "This sure looks sHHHHHHHAAAAARRRPPPPPP"!
As he left for his rental car hair smoking,I told him that down on the farm, we respect our women and that he sould consider less dangerous work than covering my campaign. Sure enough I never saw news from AP with his name again.
Aagghhh campaigning what fun!
PLEASE understand that *I* don't "know" that,either. It's just a rumor I read. Since I read it in a book when I was probably about 12 years old,I'm not even certain about the name of the book. I THINK it was "Enigma",though. That was a book about how the British came to read the secret German codes,giving full credit to the Polish partisans who captured a Enigma machine and the code books from a ambused Nazi convoy and managed to ship them to England.
I promise not to quote you, my FRiend.
FReegards...MUD
Pretty soon these reporters are going to be demanding the public supply their pollsters with information on elections. A national boycott of pollsters seems to be in order. New York could be a testing ground in their Mayoral race. Lie to the pollsters or just practice your constitutional right to keep your vote private.
Bullsh*t, Mr. Stokes. It's time to contact your corporate sponsors. Associated Press is poisoned pablum for the illiterate masses. How's that for context? You spin em' 360; and they never know.
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