These stories about the latest round of cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear systems read like a Robert Ludlum novel. It seems our friends in Teheran are battling another computer virus these days. This one is said to be even more pervasive than Stuxnet, which started putting doohickies in Iranian computer whatchamacallits some years ago.
Now a horse-choker of a story in the New York Times lays it all out, or a lot of it: The United States and Israel are said to be working together to undermine Iran's nuclear capabilities before the mullahs get themselves a nuke. Which is something just about everybody has known, even if nobody in government was talking for the record.
Off the record is another thing.
The Times' story was detailed. It included sources quoting the president and revealed the code names for some of the cyber tricks being used to disable the best-laid plans of Iran's nuclear technicians. Just how did the Times get this information? Here's its explanation:
"This account of the American and Israeli effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program is based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts. None would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day."
Highly classified?
How secret can information still be if it appears, in detail, in the New York Times for crying out loud?
But we're not blaming the Times for being the Times. The bigger question is, why are the spooks talking to the papers? Some spies they are, the blabbermouths. Why are they discussing classified information all over Page One?
Gosh, it couldn't have anything to do with this being an election year, could it, and the adminstration's leakers wanting to show how on-the-ball our super-spy of a president is? Surely not. That would be a cynical thought, and everybody knows we newspaper types are never cynical.
May we suggest a better approach for this administration to take when leaking highly classified information to the New York Times: Don't.
Why not just let the cyber-geeks do their job, and pray they do it well? When the Iranians throw up their hands and give up on their Bomb -- deciding that their economy is more important to them than bringing on The End -- then let's read all about it, in detail. But not before.
For now, just one word to everybody involved in this latest service to world peace and international stability:
Shhhhhhh.
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Oh shut up, if this was a Republican administration you'd be crowing to the skies about the skills of your awesome Uber-Hackers.
Maybe they just want to shut you up about your constant Chickenhawkering over wanting war with Iran, North Korea and whoever else the President isn't invading.
Rather than focusing on the leaker we should also be paying attention to the content of the leak. If the US and Israel are guilty of cyber attacks on Iran, then both countries are guilty of acts of war...nothing less.
Being a military bully and earning the scorn of the world for our behavior has not been working well for the US and yet we continue.
Maybe we are the Great Satan.
Sorry nucanuck, they can't complain about such a macho act of aggression as cyber-hacking except by asserting that it should be kept on the hush-hush.
They still have to be able to claim it's the RIGHT thing to do, otherwise their desire to adopt a threatening posture will be threatened.
Obamination is clearly flailing in his efforts for reelection. The RIGHT won't be fooled by macho displays and the WRONG will be offended by it. It is pitiful to see him strut, pander, and lie.
Is the message of this editorial that we should classify evil behavior to keep it from being discovered? If someone exposes this evil behavior, should they be punished or praised?
Remember Daniel Ellesberg?
We need strong people of conscience to step into the breach when our systems become corrupted. Maybe we should be praising these leaks and leakers.
nucanuck, no, that's not the message. The message is clearly: Grr, we hate Obama and must desperately flail around to seek a new reason to attack him now that we can't say he's weak on national security.
They're especially afraid it'll work.
Dang, nucanuck - surely you're not saying we have a military bully in the Whitehouse? We were gonna be saved from that in our last election, the whole world is supposed to be loving us by now.
I agree about needing strong people of conscience to step into the breach when our systems become corrupted. And our current administration seems to have little or no conscience.
Well chatt_man, our President certainly hasn't lowered our military posture vis-a-vis the rest of the world, so yes, I would say that Obama has continued,and in some ways expanded, the bullying foreign policy that has brought us low.
The world was excited by Obama and the prospects for a fresh look foreign policy. That excitement is pretty much gone and so is Obama's worldwide adoring audience. He has worn the hat of the neo-cons who permeate the high eschelons of our government. A beautiful opportunity has been missed.
In the primaries, Romney sounded even more militant than Obama. That gives me little hope for the kind of foreign policy reversal that the US needs if we are to re-build bridges with the rest of the world.
The administration seems determined to keep creating more enemies around the world. Surely they didn't plan it this way! After-all, what would happen to all those "job-creators" in the Military Industrial Complex if we ran out of people to pizz-off?
A little war is good for the economy.
I'm sure I'm quoting somebody, but I can't recall who.
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