Left Side of the Aisle #62 - Part 5

Outrage of the Week: NY Times attacked for informing citizens what is being done in their name

Early in June, the New York Times, again proving that the much-maligned mainstream media can be of considerable value when it actually does its job, published a couple of pieces on the Obama crowd's supposed "national security practices." One was about the use of drones as tools of assassination and the "kill list" drawn up so Obama can decide who we're going to kill today; the other was about cyberwarfare directed against Iran. Both were based on classified information.

I've discussed both of these over the past two weeks.

Well, now there's this big brouhaha about the fact that the paper published the info. Both Democrats and Republicans - or Demopublicans, as they should be called - condemned the leaks and the anonymous sources who did the leaking. There were charges of having endangered national security. Senior members of the intelligence committees of both houses vowed to crack down even further on leakers than the White House already has - and remember, PHC* has already charged more whistleblowers under the espionage act than all previous presidents combined, and the law is 95 years old.

To its credit, the Times is standing by the decision to publish the stories, but here is the point: This is classic misdirection, a classic case of trying to change the subject to the accuser to the point where you forget about the accusation.

The White House has a program of assassination where a group of them, including The Great Mr. O himself, sit down and go through a "kill list" of potential dead people to decide who to drop a bomb on. As part of this program, they lie about the civilian casualties they cause by defining every military-age male in the vicinity as a "combatant" without actually knowing a single damn thing about them. At the same time this is going on, the O gang also is committing acts of war against Iran, actively trying to cripple its industrial infrastructure, doing it without even the justification of self-defense, as its own intelligence services are telling it that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

Assassination, lies, unprovoked acts of war - all this is being done in your name. And what are all these people hollering about? What has got them in such a lather? The fact that you know about it. The fact that you, as citizens, know what is being done to people in other countries in your name. In their minds, doing it is not what's wrong, you knowing about it is what's wrong.

And if you as a citizen don't find that outrageous, I can't imagine what would. To me, it is the Outrage of the Week.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/jill-abramson-new-york-times-leaks-white-house_n_1608357.html

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey