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The US security establishment unfortunately is an unreliable source for such claims. For example, off the top of my head consider the original stories about Jes
by forapurpose 9y ago
The US security establishment unfortunately is an unreliable source for such claims. For example, off the top of my head consider the original stories about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, the people imprisoned in Guantanamo (who originally were identified as all serious threats, but turned out to be mostly otherwise), testimony on NSA activities, exaggerations of the consequences of Snowden's leaks (IIRC), and many more. They seem to claim what suits them until proven otherwise, and like to attack leakers and journalism.
That's a problem in a democracy, where we need to vote on these issues, because we rarely have other sources for secret information. But trusting an inaccurate source because you lack another, while tempting, is flawed reasoning. Better to say, 'I don't know'.
I wonder if some parts of the security establishment are more reliable than others. There are some individuals I trust more than others, at least.
- tmuir 9y agoI agree. You can't maintain credibility by telling everyone that you are the only legal source of information about a subject, even if that subject is yourself. Because in situations like these, the facts of the case look indistinguishable from an operation that was revealed by an unofficial, unauthorized source. That tells me that there are in fact times they would like the general public to know about their operations, and separately, those unauthorized sources seem to match the official ones a lot of the time. With that established, we can move on to trying to discern their motivations when they decide it is important we know the details of their operations, and why they would seemingly go against the very advice that they so rabidly bark to everyone else.