National defense poses a particularly difficult dilemma in a society that values free speech. On the one hand, most of the polity wants transparency, accountability and honesty, but on the other hand a free flow of information is inimical to secuirty. Few cases demonstrate this as well as the Wikileaks imbroglio, but overshadowed by the publicity surrounding the benighted principals in the case is the fact that plenty of damage is also the result of leaks by the government itself.
Now, with much fanfare Attorney General Eric Holder has announced the appointment of two prosecutors to investigate leaks emanating from the government. Those who are familiar with television crime programs will recognize these appointments as the federal equivalent of a police department's Internal Affairs Division, whose responsibilities include the investigation of official misconduct. Although most drama is exaggerated, the dislike of IA operations is not hyperbole, and any cooperation is usually the result of fear: information is uncovered only because of a perceived threat of prosecution and often in exchange for some level of immunity. If it goes anywhere, the investigation of security leaks will not be much different.
As with most things, determining what has happened or who has done it is not as instructive as discovering why. People in government reveal secrets for a number of reasons, and the least prevalent is a deep-seated and fundamental belief that all information should be unfettered. There are plenty of naive or overzealous idealists with those views, but they have rarely been the inside source of sensitive information, mostly because they don't serve or remain in positions where such information is available. Nor is much information divulged because someone has paid for it or because the leak is part of a plan to undermine the integrity of American security.
Instead, leaks most often occur during the playing of petty political and bureaucratic games, and that means that the majority of detructive information is leaked by people whose salaries are paid with your tax money. Because nearly all legislation and thus expenditure requires agreement between the executive and legislative branches, a very large number of bureaucrats are working on funding and policy issues at any time. When staff officers---in the Pentagon or in the Congress or in the White House---have sought to gain some advantage they have frequently leaked information in an attempt to mobilize support for their own positions and to generate opposition to others'.
In Great Britain, although the public is not complacent about the existence of information about which it has no knowledge, there is an Official Secrets Act that imposes harsh penalties for leaks. But Britain also has a parliamentary system with strong parties, and concensus is much easier to forge than in the United States, where political parties are weak, the system puts a premium on the popular strength and checkbook of individual politicians, and the way in which we do legislative business is by counting coup.
If this seems like the American way, that's because it has come to be the American way, but it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. Although many leaks don't do much immediate harm, the attitude that winning is everything and the people be damned is a clear and present danger, and the people rightly ought to be indignant about it.
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I don't think we need leaks to be indignant about this president . Most were at that point before any leaks .
The term most means the inclusion of people whose opinions are only conjecture to you. That most you're talking about is about 48%, that same 48% who had the same opinion before he even took office, based on race and not job performance. That means nothing.
What has destroyed this nation is the childish partisan gridlock in Congress, and the games of one-upmanship that both parties play as a result. This will go down as the worst Congress in history.
The alternative to righting the economy is the already known to fail " Defense Stimulus" that the GOP plans taking a page from Reagan by increasing the Defense Budget at a time when we're about to pull out of a war. There is no reason for a peacetime Defense increase, and it's a waste of taxpayer dollars as it was in 1982 when we had no enemy and were on peacetime footing.
Not going to make a difference. What we need is Unity, and we should have had it during the recession.
Colonel, with all do respect, when was the last time this Nation actually had to "Defend" itself?
exactly
maybe if we cut back on the interventionism abroad...which can be argued actually threatens our national security....maybe there wouldnt even be a need for all this "secrecy."
The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were in defense of our nation and actually succeeded. When you must defeat a shadowy, elusive opponent, the proper place to fight them is ANYWHERE that the enemy feels they must come to fight with us.
Al Qaida and other radical terrorist elements clearly felt it was important to them to fight for Iraq and Afghanistan. Their losses have been considerable in both arenas. Any campaign that brings you in contact with an elusive enemy must be the right campaign, unless your policy is going to be just to sit home and wait for their next well-planned attack on your homeland.
Yes, we probably should have invaded Pakistan as well. And Iran. At some point we may find ourselves drawn into direct confrontation with nuclear-armed nations. What a problematic experiment that will be!
What rather concerns me at the moment is that President Obama may desperately want another spectacular military success in the next six months. This POTUS to date certainly has not been timid about going after the bad guys wherever he can find them. He also clearly wants to claim the maximum amount of personal credit for every success.
Iraq had NOTHING to do with defending our nation. Neither did Vietnam which I was a part of. We haven't defended our nation since WWII.
While I agree with the statement that the current President has been aggressive in rooting out the terrorist leaders, I don't agree with the premise that we should have invaded sovereign nations for no reason. Nuclear War ( Pakistan ) is nothing to look forward to.
I tend to take with a grain of salt war mongering posts from those who haven't placed their own lives on the line for their country. It's not a chess game.
Then you'd agree that when they blew up the USS COle, they were shooting at our country. When they blew up the marine barracks in Beirut, they were shooting at us. When they drove planes into some skyscrapers in New York, they were shooting at us. When anyone anywhere on the planet fires on a US serviceperson, they are firing at us.
Former Navy Electricians Mate, USS Constellation CV-64, 1982-1986
damn jim...I just missed you....I visited the Constellation or the "connie" back in 1987
Former Navy Operations Specialist USS Rentz FFG-46 1987-1991.
there are sure a bunch of us ex navy guys on here.
Some days it was the Constipation, but it overall it was a good boat. DId you happen to hear the legend of the '83 West-Pac when an idiot EM "killed the boat"? Dropped every generator on the ship, ended up dead in the water and we had to get a "jump start" from the destoyer cruising nect to us? That idiot? You're looking at him, but I still maintain that IT WASN"T MY FAULT. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)
lol
no I never heard that one.
I ma glad that Wikileaks went public with the information it had. There are two resaons fro this:
1. Most secret information was secret to Americans only. It is like the "secret" bombing of Cambodia. The people of Cambodia knew they were being bombed.
2. If secrets have been leaked, it is better that we know they have been leaked. What would have been the results has they been sold to another country and we did not know about it. We would be in the same position as the Japanese and Germans who did not realize we had their enigma machine and could read all secret communications. Better to know the information is leaked.
I have yet to see any investigation as to how this information was leaked. An enlisted man is charged, but someone designed the systems, placed the man in a position to leak, had ineffective controls. This is like Lt. Calley being the one responsible for MaiLai when the probe should have reached at least a major general. But we do not do that.
Propose re-structuring the DOD into Two distinct ideologies and Department's, with separate funding, rules for warfare, and rule's of engagement, right on down to whether they can operate on American soil.
Just like a Football team I would like to see our Military and Intelligence capabilities operate under a Chief of Staff. With an Offensive Coordinator, for all over-sea's and Offensive type operations. This will at least eliminate the hypocrisy from the term DOD budget, and Americans stomach's won't have to churn every time they see hearings on the subject.
No one under the Chain of command of the offensive coordinator Will ever be allowed to operate in CONUS, posse comitatus is thus restored.
The Patriot act has been seen by many former Military as an abomination from that for which we served. Yet being ex-Military we are also pragmatists and therefore know that healing will not happen until Congress Cuts back severely on the ALPHABETS..DOD, FBI, NSA, DHS, IRS, CIA, There offspring, siblings, and contractors.
When the Washington D.C. area, Langley Va. Del. and the Government sponsored east coast top 10 Real estate hot spots in the U.S. experience their own little housing crisis.........Then and only then will we know that Government is starting to heal.
Thanks to the Obama boom in National Offense/Dept of Homelands Security growth, The Nations wealth has been re-distributed to that area.
According to Forbe's the nation's wealth is settling in Washington's suburb's, over the past four years. Is that a coincidence?
Those goons will scare the crap out of you, and smile, then pick your pocket if you let them.
I was a part of Vietnam. I felt at the time that the USA was in actual danger from communist ideas, and I still think that is true. The military strategy the Pentagon and the Johnson administration employed in Vietnam (which relied on conscripted soldiers carrying on bloody offensive operations to gain ground that would be immediately abandoned) I felt was obscenely stupid.
If the clock could be set back to 1964 and we could get a do-over, the way to go would have been to construct strong but small defensive perimeters around Saigon and maybe Da Nang. American air power would be limited to bombing no more than five kms from that defensive wire in either direction. No over-flights of North Vietnam or the rest of South Vietnam, and no backing coups. We would in effect have created two little Hong Kongs surrounded by a hostile mainland, but the smaller bastions could have been effectively defended with our firepower advantage.
We should have used our airpower only over our tiny perimeter DMZ so that if our planes were hit the crew's parachutes are easily visible by ground forces that can go get them. Deep overflights of enemy territory cause P.O.W.'s. The enemy would have come to us, trying to repeat their Dienbienphu buried-artillery tactic. Carpet bombing and heavy counter-artillery defeats that, especially since radar even in the 1960's could roughly gauge the trajectory of incoming shells and rockets. Tunnels would have been a problem so another 5 km inner no foliage zone would have had to be maintained and surveilled.
If you are going to sell the American people on a defensive war you have to fight it like a defensive war. You don't send draftee units slogging through rice paddies carrying space age .22 pop guns so that your troops don't die of heat stroke. You use bonus-paid volunteer soldiers in armored towers and bunkers with real M-14 rifles that can actually put down the enemy at 700 yds. Use lots of Agent Orange in a 5 km swath through no man's land. Make sure the garrison soldiers have cold beer when they need it. Never bomb a friendly village.
Can you defeat a hostile idea with an appropriate and cost-effective military strategy? Gee, I dunno. Isn't that what today's drone warfare is all about?
I recommend you read the book "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam", by MG McMaster (he was just made the CG at Fort Benning). The insights provided regarding the use of the Air Force and Naval are very revealing. After reading the book, it became apparent of the role McNamara and the JCS exculsion from much of the planning.
Well written, with mature insight. Pleasantly surprised.
Good words, but the govt. is like a horse with a broken ankle. You can shout "heal!" but at the end of the day, it's time to go the way of ol' yeller. Sorry boy, but reform can't fix this any more than bandaids can fix shattered glass.
Unless the enemy is identified one is only fighting with windmills. The solution doesn't lie so much in the effects as it lies in the addressing the causes which always precedes the effects.