Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
During today's press conference, someone asked Obama about the leaks of operational and perhaps classified or sensitive information regarding the Stuxnet computer virus that may have hindered or delayed the Iranian program to develop a nuclear weapon. Specifically, it was asked how he would respond to charges that the leaks were politically motivated to make him look better in the areas of defense and foreign affairs, this being an election year. To which he replied that such an accusation was "offensive", and that of course his administration would never stoop to such a thing.
Well maybe so, maybe this is just some underling somewhere who wants to make the boss look good, without any authorization or encouragement from anyone higher up. But it ain't just an isolated incident, is it? IMHO, we are providing too much operational information, deliberately or not, that could jeopardize our soldiers or agents in the field and compromise those who would help us. Look at what happened to the Pakistani doctor who helped us confirm Bin Laden's presence in that compound, which lead to our raid to kill him. The guy got sentenced to 33 years in prison, partly cuz we helped identify who he was by shooting our mouths off about how we knew he was there. You tell me, how cooperative do you think others in that region of the world are going to be with us?
And this Stuxnet thing, what the fuck are we doing letting that kind of information get out there? What're we doing alerting our enemies to our capabilities and what we're doing? Borders on treason if you ask me. So why isn't the president vowing to go after whoever leaked the info, why did they refuse to have an independent investigation? It just doesn't look good, and when you've got Senators from your own party demanding answers, I don't think stonewalling is going to work.
Well maybe so, maybe this is just some underling somewhere who wants to make the boss look good, without any authorization or encouragement from anyone higher up. But it ain't just an isolated incident, is it? IMHO, we are providing too much operational information, deliberately or not, that could jeopardize our soldiers or agents in the field and compromise those who would help us. Look at what happened to the Pakistani doctor who helped us confirm Bin Laden's presence in that compound, which lead to our raid to kill him. The guy got sentenced to 33 years in prison, partly cuz we helped identify who he was by shooting our mouths off about how we knew he was there. You tell me, how cooperative do you think others in that region of the world are going to be with us?
And this Stuxnet thing, what the fuck are we doing letting that kind of information get out there? What're we doing alerting our enemies to our capabilities and what we're doing? Borders on treason if you ask me. So why isn't the president vowing to go after whoever leaked the info, why did they refuse to have an independent investigation? It just doesn't look good, and when you've got Senators from your own party demanding answers, I don't think stonewalling is going to work.