Let’s see RBB you could drop a pile of bombs to destroy a target hidden in a civilian area or one precision weapon. That saves lives. Still it’s a war and civilian casualties do happen.

Why don’t you save your anger towards the terrorist idiots that started this war and are hiding behind civilians.

Yeah, Israel’s bad because it’s the only proven democracy in the Mideast. Plus the arab-Israelies actually have rights.

I guess what makes them bad is that they refuse to let their enemies destroy them. Hardly fair.

Ok I admit it, I don’t understand the anti-Israel viewpoint.

But, I agree with Rob, that the best thing is to prosecute the leakers. Let’s stay away from the 1st amendment. However that doesn’t mean that reporters don’t have an obligation to cooperate with the authorities.

I have. The only conclusion I can come up with is that you think the 1st Amendment is idiotic.

Since you’ve stretched your brain out to it’s maximum and still can’t come up with a glimmer I’ll help you.

It’s idiotic to assume that that we are one step away from being a fascist country.

It’s idiotic to assume that the New York Times is the defender of our freedoms, when in fact they’ve chosen sides against the United States in this war.

It’s idiotic because the post and the discussion was not saying that the Enemy Times didn’t have 1st amendment times.

It’s idiotic to use that kind of term (fascist) when discussing keeping secrets during a time of war.

It’s idiotic to say that we’d be a fascist country with a limitation on the freedom of the press, when we have an illegal limitation (IMO) on Freedom of speech that was put on by the Congress, President and the Supreme Court. Even with that we are not a fascist country, although of the two it’s much more significant.

I could go on, but I’ve probably already overloaded your comprehension circuit.

So Whistler, Impeaching Bill Clinton harmed the Nation?

No, Bill Clinton committing perjury while he was President of the United States harmed the nation.

Trying to equate lying under oath to get out of a sexual harassment suit and properly conducting a war is absurd.

Since when did Israel’s national security become ours?
This is a non issue. If you want to worry about something, worry about what kind of government we’re fighting for in Iraq. Here’s their prime minister’s comment about Israels actions:
“The hostile acts against Lebanon will have effects on the region and we are not far from what is going on in Lebanon,” al-Maliki said. “We will speak with the United Nations and American government to call for a cease-fire quickly.”
Saddam couldn’t have said it better…

Robert108:
“They seem to think that harming the President somehow magically doesn’t harm the country”

I’m not sure I even know how to answer your post. Are you suggesting that criticising the president is harming the country?

this news must leave Hez and Iran scared shiteless, and for good reason.

No. What scares then is that they may be blown away and not take out a Jew or two.

That’s why this war is a quandry, we fight to stay alive, they fight to die but take out Jews and Americans. How do you fight someone whose goal is to die?

I never said that and I dare you to show me where I did.

First I am accused of being anti 2nd Amendment by someone else, then you, then your claim that I said something I didn’t. Grow up.
FreeRepublicans.com on July 22, 2006 at 8:31 PM

Well there were these quotes by you.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that you think the 1st Amendment is idiotic.

Because what I am hearing from you is the Leftist idea of “Free Speech for Me, but not for Thee.”

I agree with Rob that the reporters, and editor, publisher, etc., should not be charged. They are not, technically, guilty of anything that I know of. That said though, if there was no publication that would print leaked information, there would be no leakers.

But the power of a free press in a free market rests entirely on the consumers. The NYT is hurting, but not more than most other print media outlets. If you’re really pissed at how the NYT has decided it should be the leakers’ go-to-source for publication of classified information, hit them in their wallets.

The information in this story was not just secretive, assuming this is actually accurate and we’ve seen enough that it could very well have been Priested,* but it also is very misleading based upon their own reporting within the body of the article. If increased munitions shipments approved one year ago have occured to Israel, it has nothing at all to do with the current situation. But the NYT apparently feels there is a connection, and there’s little question in my mind such a connection was proposed by whomever leaked the information. The NYT apparently feels the old, concrete media responsibly to sort real news with what might be fake news no longer applies.

*Priested – printing a story from leaked information that is false, i.e. “Secret Prisons” throughout Europe.

I don’t speak for Robert, obviously, but when Israel declared itself a state in 1948 it also became a U.S. ally. All U.S. allies are important to our own national security.

Israel declared itself a state in 1948? Sure, but that didn’t make it a state.

The United Nations gave Israel the blessing to exist and that is why it is there.

“Since when did Israel’s national security become ours?”

Since 1948. Sorry I had to tell you that.

Explain your reasoning Robert.

What did we have to fear in 1948?

Maybe if we would have been more proactive in heading off the Soviets in their making of allies of the Arabs we would have been better off.

I would say that the Iranian Revolution of ’79 made Israel’s problems ours cause the last of our puppets was gone.

Free:

Maybe you should travel back in time to tell the founder’s to limit the Press to patriotic purposes.

Because what I am hearing from you is the Leftist idea of “Free Speech for Me, but not for Thee.”

Amend the constitution to say that the Press must be pro-America and pro-President – for God, King, and Country.

In response to my posts where I said this about the 1st amendment:

It’s idiotic because the post and the discussion was not saying that the Enemy Times didn’t have 1st amendment [right to print the story--I screwed up]times.

Try to understand; we aren’t saying that the Times broke the law. We are saying that there may be laws that were broken by the leakers. That’s two different things.

I agree with Rob, that the best thing is to prosecute the leakers. Let’s stay away from the 1st amendment.

Free, I’d recommend you try something to increase your reading comprehension.

But above all this is just another example of how government can’t control itself.

You’d think our government could screen its employees better.

No, I’m not suggesting anything at all; I’m coming right out and saying it. What the NYT is doing is not criticism; it’s attack, lying, dirty tricks, treason and propaganda. That is way beyond “criticism”. Try to get a grip on reality, dude. Your attempt to rationalize their foul deeds is despicable. Criticism is reasoned debate, or unreasonable debate, but what they are doing is straight out treachery, designed to bring harm to the President. Like I said, they either don’t know or don’t care about the effects on our country. Clear now?

It’s history.

There you go, Chad. It seemed so obvious to me that I was ashamed to think I had to tell anyone such a thing. Although Iraq promises to be one, Israel has always been, and continues to be, our only real ally in the ME.

The NYT is misusing free speech the same way the Supreme Court misused the “right to privacy” in authorizing the abortion holocaust, which is at over 50 million deaths and counting. The NYT and other leftie demagogues must exist in some fantasy country called “leftieland” where they are entitled to do anything they want to express their temper at not getting what they want. They seem to think that harming the President somehow magically doesn’t harm the country, and so they do everything they can to harm the President, undermine and obstruct the war on terrorists, and try to downtalk the economy, all to harm the President, without the germ of awareness that they are harming the country. They are like a willful six year old who wishes his mom and dad were dead because they won’t let him stay up late to watch a TV show. The First Amendment was to allow political Free Speech, which wasn’t allowed in Great Britain at the time, and freedom of the press, which didn’t exist in GB at that time, either. It should be obvious, but not to the leftards, that using this right to harm the country isn’t a good thing to do. Their pathetic rationalization of “the public’s right to know” is idiotic.
They should desist from this destruction for the good of the country, but maybe they don’t regard it as their country. So much for the consent of the governed. I guess for them, it’s the constent of the NYT.

I think the administration is playing the MSM in this case; this news must leave Hez and Iran scared shiteless, and for good reason. We should ignore the UN and the rest of the terrorist sympathizers in the world.

Now I don’t claim that Israel today is the same as Britain 60 years ago.

I would hope not. But I wonder what happened when info about the Lend-Lease programs was leaked to the Germans? The same thing should happen to the leakers here.

And yes, I realize the issue of supporting Israel is a mute point.

We’ve made that bed, now we have to sleep in it.

Oftentimes, what is technically legal is not right. The NYT has given us multiple examples of their inability or unwillingness to make that distinction.

I don’t speak for Robert, obviously, but when Israel declared itself a state in 1948 it also became a U.S. ally. All U.S. allies are important to our own national security.

So Whistler, Impeaching Bill Clinton harmed the Nation?

I don’t understand the issue.

Join the club. $50/mo. I accept Paypal.

With or without the UN blessing on a specific date, the day the U.S. recognized Israel and it became an ally was the day that it’s national security became ours. It’s as if this is a completely foreign concept. This isn’t a hard concept to grasph and for the life of me cannot figure out why one cannot.

Israel is the State’s only true, time-tested ally in the Middle East. If shit were to hit the fan anywhere, name one nation other than Israel in the Middle East that would drop what they were doing to help us out. Egypt might. Turkey might. Saudi Arabia might. Might, might, might.

So pardon any implied insinuations on my part, and from what it sounds like on the part of Robert, but people saying the security of a U.S. ally is in no relation to our own security is akin to saying there was a nation called Palestine and a group of people called Palestinians prior to Israel’s existence. Neither are based in reality.

hmm…try this

err on the side of strife

My point is that the NYT didn’t endanger U.S.security when they published this information.
France is an ally.
Germany is an ally.
Even Tajikistan is an ally, but if I published something detrimental to their security it could hardly be called treason in America.

No, giving away our intelligence secrets and our movements of materiel, for the purpose of obstructing our ability to defeat the terrorists is treachery or treason. This has nothing to do with criticism. You are the only one trying to equate that with what the NYT and the rest of the treasonous lefties are doing.

Chad:
For what it’s worth, I never voted for Clinton.
I do worry these days though, that people seem to equate criticism of the President, or the situation in Iraq/Afghanistan with treason.
To me it’s a very healthy part of our Democracy.

Bat: I think we are beating a dead horse, here. He still seems to be stuck on the concept that the treason of the NYT is the same as criticism of the President. What can you do with such a person? He just doesn’t get it, and doesn’t want to.

Greg: “It’s hardly a secret that we supply Israel with her weapons…”
If you mean that they buy them from us, and that we sell weapons to our allies, those facts are well known; by wording it the way you do, you seek to misinform, but the exact time and quantities are not well-known. In war, intel is basic. Giving it to the enemy is always wrong, and as a civilian, you apparently have no idea how wrong it is. You are simply ignorant.

Precision-guided bombs save civilian lives.

Except for the ones that don’t.

Greg, I agree to an extent, but there is a certain level of criticism that should and should not be thrown at the Office of the Presidency during a war and there’s a certain level that should and shouldn’t be thrown at a war that is still being waged. There has been, or at least what appears to be, a very concerted effort by some media outlets, CIA spooks, politicians and political advocacy groups that have put their own agenda ahead of the best interests of this nation. It is not in the best interest of this nation to lose any war, much less a war against an enemy that is born and raised to circumvent what you and I call basic freedoms. Criticisms that put this nation on a back footing with regard to the current wars I believe are contrary to the very principles in which this nation was founded upon.

Leaks of classified material, no matter what it is, still constitutes a violation of the law. When there have been a series of leaks that have been used to damage the president, the war effort and the very foot soldiers that fight in those wars many people are left scratching their heads wondering “what side are they on?” The sides are clearly drawn for all to see; pluralistic society versus Islamo-fascism. Yet, as we see countless times, some people simply just don’t get it and instead use whatever they can, truth or blatent falsehoods, against political opponents to suit their own disposition. Our enemy is doing it, and our fellow countrymen do the same damn thing.

It is this two-sided war, so to speak, that drive many of us who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the greater GWOT absolutely furious. If I had just one nickle for every terrorist statement, video, communique, audio address, etc. that mimmicked what we hear in this country by opponents to President Bush I could buy the Chicago Cubs and hopefully put the fans out of their misery.

So while I agree to an extent, the rhetoric needs to be curbed, but it should be curbed internally and not through an outside force (i.e. arrests). If those that criticize this nation and the efforts of this nation truly love this country, they could realize that their poisoned daggers will eventually lead to their own demise. The problem is that it will bring the rest of us down too and I, for one, will not sit here and listen to this political positioning that helps our common foes without at least calling out what I believe is helping our enemies.

In this case, it is crystal clear that the article in question was slanted in such a way that it brings what should be old news (we all know the U.S. sells arms and munitions to Israel) into the current situation in order to damage this country’s standing. It’s not the material of the article necessarily, but the way it was delivered and the NYT knows better; they just don’t care.

Chad: In the sense that both fascism and communism involve an all powerful central govt, they are so much alike as to make detail differences merely academic. The reality is that “progressives”(lefties, IMO) don’t favor democracy at all, they just say they do to rope in the “common people”, who they then want to control, because the “mass of people” don’t know the right thing to do, and so the dictatorship of the proletariat is imposed. When Clinto told a town meeting that he might have overtaxed them, but didn’t think it was a good idea to give any of it back because they might not do the right thing with it, he epitomized his real philosophy, which is dictatorial socialism. You have it right.

And yet you do not support the 2nd Amendment. You want people to have free speech, and yet you refuse to allow them to defend themselves. Very telling.

I don’t understand the issue. Is the problem that the Times reported the story of expediting the delivery of arms to Israel?

I agree Bat One and I didn’t mean to imply that the motive necessarily would effect guilt, legally that is, either way. My previous diatribe was essentially written as my opinion on dissent as a whole rather than this one specific issue.

With dissent, the motive I think is extremely important to point out, debate and criticize if needed. On legal matters, I don’t believe it matters at all, much like the hate crime comparison you brought to the table (I also disagree with the issue of hate crimes by the way). But with this issue, my pointing out what I believe the motive of the NYT is merely is criticism of that motive rather than either professing legal guilt or innocence.

FreeRepublican:
“Misusing” free speech to these posters is obviously being critical of the Bush administration.

Are you saying that legally the paper could be convicted of treason for revealing Israeli military secrets?

My point is that the NYT didn’t endanger U.S.security when they published this information.

Actually a good point.

The initial analogy is a false dilemia.

Is delivering weapons to Israel the same as to U.S. Forces?

Is Israel a member of the U.S. Armed Forces?

Sorry Chad but with respect I disagree. There isn’t a jury in the land that would convict the NYT in this case.
Israel is a good ally perhaps, but their National Security and ours are separate.

I know what you said and what you meant.

Robert108:
It’s hardly a secret that we supply Israel with her weapons, and as for your comment about ‘revealing movement of materiel’: are you worried that a Hezbollah submarine will sink the convoy?
You need to move past WWII….

I think this nit has been way overpicked. The NYT wants to undermine this Administration, and that is the origin of their treachery. They are misusing “freedom of speech”, like the lefties always do, to do something harmful to our overall national security. They hope to distance us from one of our important allies. Don’t any of you get that?

I’d say the editors have just as much if not more culpability than the reporters themselves.

If it wasn’t a secret, woofie, then why did the sources speak anonymously?

And you’re saying that last year our lawmakers predicted this conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and, in light of it, authorized an increase in arms shipments?

You really need to quit doing drugs.

Under the law it is a crime to leak government secrets, not necessarily to print them once they’ve been leaked.

The media is worthy of criticism for this, but not legally cuplable. That responsibility lays with the leakers who broke the law.