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A word from Lt. Cotton

passin thru

Well-known member
Lt. Tom Cotton writes this morning from Baghdad with a word for the New York Times:

Dear Messrs. Keller, Lichtblau & Risen:

Congratulations on disclosing our government's highly classified anti-terrorist-financing program (June 23). I apologize for not writing sooner. But I am a lieutenant in the United States Army and I spent the last four days patrolling one of the more dangerous areas in Iraq. (Alas, operational security and common sense prevent me from even revealing this unclassified location in a private medium like email.)

Unfortunately, as I supervised my soldiers late one night, I heard a booming explosion several miles away. I learned a few hours later that a powerful roadside bomb killed one soldier and severely injured another from my 130-man company. I deeply hope that we can find and kill or capture the terrorists responsible for that bomb. But, of course, these terrorists do not spring from the soil like Plato's guardians. No, they require financing to obtain mortars and artillery shells, priming explosives, wiring and circuitry, not to mention for training and payments to locals willing to emplace bombs in exchange for a few months' salary. As your story states, the program was legal, briefed to Congress, supported in the government and financial industry, and very successful.

Not anymore. You may think you have done a public service, but you have gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis here. Next time I hear that familiar explosion -- or next time I feel it -- I will wonder whether we could have stopped that bomb had you not instructed terrorists how to evade our financial surveillance.

And, by the way, having graduated from Harvard Law and practiced with a federal appellate judge and two Washington law firms before becoming an infantry officer, I am well-versed in the espionage laws relevant to this story and others -- laws you have plainly violated. I hope that my colleagues at the Department of Justice match the courage of my soldiers here and prosecute you and your newspaper to the fullest extent of the law. By the time we return home, maybe you will be in your rightful place: not at the Pulitzer announcements, but behind bars.

Very truly yours,

Tom Cotton
Baghdad, Iraq


http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014515.php
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
It's about time!!!

And we, as American citizens should insist on it.

What do we do now to make enough noise we can't be ignored?

When this Admistration quits lying to us. Bush stood up and outright lied when he assured us that a wiretap required a search warrant. Then we found out they were getting records of our telephone calls. If those things hadn't happened, this financial thing wouldn't even make the news. It's not that they're just looking at financial transactions, it's the continuation of digging through our personal data that is newsworthy. Thanks, New York Times. Keep up the good work!

And, by the way, our "leaker in chief", George W. Bush should be ashamed of himself for complaining after he authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified documents.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Disagreeable said:
Faster horses said:
It's about time!!!

And we, as American citizens should insist on it.

What do we do now to make enough noise we can't be ignored?

When this Admistration quits lying to us. Bush stood up and outright lied when he assured us that a wiretap required a search warrant. Then we found out they were getting records of our telephone calls. If those things hadn't happened, this financial thing wouldn't even make the news. It's not that they're just looking at financial transactions, it's the continuation of digging through our personal data that is newsworthy. Thanks, New York Times. Keep up the good work!

And, by the way, our "leaker in chief", George W. Bush should be ashamed of himself for complaining after he authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified documents.

Now, c'mon dis, we don't know if it wasn't Dick (no pun intended but funny anyway---get your mind out of the gutter--I meant Watergate).

The real troubling thing this episode shows to me is that Bush is no Ronald Reagan. Reagan said no when the bureacracy was wrong on an important treaty because of his convictions. Bush does it for political purposes.

To me these things make these men miles apart.

A prominant former member of Congress once told me that the batch of republicans in power right now were not Ronald Reagan republicans. I would have to agree.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
"A prominant former member of Congress once told me that the batch of republicans in power right now were not Ronald Reagan republicans. I would have to agree."

I would agree with you there.
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
There is established law regarding the disclosure of government secrets. Justice Hugo Black wrote about the "Pentagon Papers" (remember those?):

"In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."

I doubt the Administration has legal grounds to charge anyone at the Times with a crime. It's all hot air, like most of the stuff we see coming from the White House these days.
 
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