Editorials & Other Articles

sad sally

(2,627 posts) Tue Jun 12, 2012, 10:51 PM Jun 2012

Don't Be Fooled By Obama's Faux-Righteous Indignation About Leaks

JUN 11 2012, Conor Friedersdorf
The president hasn't endangered national security -- and Congress is pursuing the wrong solution. America needs less classified info, not fewer leaks.

When Joseph Heller's literary heirs satirize the War on Terror's absurdity (for there is absurdity in every war), the treatment of classified information is sure to be as fruitful a theme as it was in Catch-22. For example, the CIA bombarded Pakistan last week with three days of drone strikes, ultimately killing Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi. This didn't surprise anyone, for the whole world knows that the CIA uses drones to target Al Qaeda in Pakistan. The drone program is nevertheless classified. The Department of Justice says as much when explaining to judges why it shouldn't be forced to litigate certain cases. And White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is forced into vague locutions when asked about drone kills. "Our intelligence community has intelligence that leads them to believe that Al Qaeda's number-two leader, al-Libi, is dead," he said last week. "I can't get into details about how his death was brought about."

Yet even as most Obama Administration officials are insistent that they can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a drone program, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA, has acknowledged its existence on numerous occasions. John Brennan, the White House's top counterterrorism adviser, has acknowledged its existence too. Ditto Attorney General Eric Holder. And even President Obama himself has acknowledged that the program exists. In their comments, these men have all defended it against its critics. Meanwhile, certain folks privy to the CIA drone program who doubt its efficacy are prohibited from making their arguments, or even acknowledging that the covert program exists.

Absurd, isn't it?

It's an abuse of power too. The Obama Administration demands that various things be kept secret for national-security reasons. By talking about those very things, it demonstrates either that it is harming national security, or that it exploits the classification system for leverage in the political realm.

But which one?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/dont-be-fooled-by-obamas-faux-righteous-indignation-about-leaks/258316/

4 replies

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Highlight:

Don't Be Fooled By Obama's Faux-Righteous Indignation About Leaks (Original Post) sad sally Jun 2012 OP

Prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act (while leaking favorable "secrets") DirkGently Jun 2012 #1

K&R. nt OnyxCollie Jun 2012 #2

This absurd obsession with secrecy is reminiscent of the waning days of JDPriestly Jun 2012 #3

Based on Panetta's comments in India last week, at least we now know we're at war with Pakistan - no sad sally Jun 2012 #4

DirkGently

(12,151 posts)

1. Prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act (while leaking favorable "secrets")

Reply to sad sally (Original post)

Tue Jun 12, 2012, 11:33 PM

Jun 2012

is indefensible.

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)

2. K&R. nt

Reply to sad sally (Original post)

Wed Jun 13, 2012, 01:57 AM

Jun 2012

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)

3. This absurd obsession with secrecy is reminiscent of the waning days of

Reply to sad sally (Original post)

Wed Jun 13, 2012, 02:30 AM

Jun 2012

the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

The only people who are fooled in the end are the members of the government who think that they are smarter than everyone else and there is no one in the general public who can figure out what they are doing based on facts that have to be made public no matter what.

sad sally

(2,627 posts)

4. Based on Panetta's comments in India last week, at least we now know we're at war with Pakistan - no

Reply to JDPriestly (Reply #3)

Wed Jun 13, 2012, 04:43 PM

Jun 2012

need to keep this secret any longer. Don't suppose he (Panetta) is one of the leakers?
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Pentagon Chief Admits U.S. Is at War in Pakistan
By Spencer Ackerman - June 6, 2012

“We are fighting a war in the FATA, we are fighting a war against terrorism,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday, referring to the tribal areas of Pakistan that the U.S. has spent three years bombing heavily. Was that so hard to admit?

For years, it has been. Neither the Bush nor Obama administration has been forthright about the starkest fact of the recent war on terrorism: most of it takes place in western Pakistan. As CIA director and now Pentagon chief, Panetta has been one of the key architects of the accelerated drone-and-commando war the U.S. wages there in what amounts to an open secret. In 2009, the critical year in that acceleration, Danger Room boss Noah Shachtman started pressing the Obama administration for disclosure about a war the U.S. waged in all but name.

It may be late, but at least now it’s happened. The day after the U.S. claimed that its latest drone strike in tribal Pakistan killed al-Qaida’s second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, Panetta used the W-word to angrily dismiss the Pakistani government’s complaints about the U.S. infringing on its sovereignty. “We have made very clear that we are going to continue to defend ourselves,” Panetta said in New Dehli.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/drone-war-admission/

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