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« New World Blog | Main | Tennessee Ends Illegal ISP Tax » January 28, 2004Warning al QaedaThe Chicago Tribune has published a report of planning underway for a new spring military offensive against al Qaeda inside Pakistan, thus alerting al Qaeda to the I agree with Matthew over at Blackfive.net - publication of the story is an egregious move on the part of the Trib. The Tribune should have titled it - Hey Osama, Watch Out! This makes my blood boil...You think that this is going to be a surprise attack? Not anymore thanks to the stellar reporting at the Tribune! And you all know someone who is heading over there and will certainly be part of any offensive in the area.Blackfive helpfully has published contact info for the reporter and the paper's "public editor," and suggested wording for an email expressing disgust with the newspaper for publishing a report that alerts our enemies and may increase the danger for troops carrying out the mission. UPDATE: Darren Kaplan has a different perspective on the Trib publishing the story that merits your attention. Kaplan's blog merits your attention regularly - I can't figure out why he's not a star of the blogosphere already. Comments
If I remember right, in 1942 the Tribune also reported that we had broken the Japanese code. Posted by: Gary at January 28, 2004 11:42 AMI don't know the backstory on the Trib, but I wouldn't be surprised if this were a plan by the Bush team to allow Musharaf to put pressure on al Qaeda. Posted by: james@outsidethebeltway.com at January 28, 2004 12:37 PMThe problem is that the information came from "military sources." Someone needs a court martial. Posted by: Poker Player (aka Jim) at January 28, 2004 2:56 PMI'm not overly sure this wasn't planned by the Administration. I don't know, but consider the scenario with this question: If you wanted to get BinLaden to expose himself to our intel people without causing a great deal of bloshed, how would you do it? One simple way would be to fake a message that a raid was going to take place where we belived him to be. Posted by: Bithead at January 28, 2004 2:57 PMI agree. This stinks to high heaven of disinformation. Posted by: Hermit Dave at January 29, 2004 2:05 AMWhat's the journalist's ethical responsibility here? Where is a paper supposed to draw the line between national interest and scoop? I'm asking in all seriousness... is there some guiding principle? Posted by: jimmy at January 29, 2004 9:09 AMI think the best policy is to keep secrets secret, rather than to trust journalists. If I thought I had this scoop, I'd publish it on my blog in a second, because I'd be pretty sure I wasn't the only one who'd hear about it over the next year. If I didn't publish it, someone else certainly would. Once a secret's out, it's out -- unless the invasion were imminent, in which case operational secrecy might still be useful. I think it's highly unrealistic to expect people inthe business of spreading news to sit on something like this for months. Posted by: Michael Williams at January 29, 2004 6:01 PMPost a comment
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