While insurgent sources in Iraq told TIME they had no prior knowledge of the Amman attacks, the fact that al-Zarqawi would strike Jordan wasn't surprising. U.S. military officials have viewed Jordan as an inevitable target for al-Zarqawi in his effort to export jihad outside Iraq. Jordan's King Abdullah II has longstanding ties to the U.S. (he went to junior high at the Eaglebrook School in Massachusetts and prep school at Deerfield Academy) and has quietly supported the U.S. war effort, despite its deep unpopularity with the Jordanian public. Jordan is a staging ground for the private contractors supplying and working with U.S. forces in Iraq. More crucially, it is where U.S. officers carry out what is, in Washington's eyes, one of the most vital tasks of the war: the training of new Iraqi military and security forces, whose viability is essential to the U.S.'s exit strategy in Iraq.
Insurgent sources? To non-media types like you and me "insurgents" are "terrorists." Especially those who would be in-the-know on suicide attacks. Which means that these people are, unequivocally, the enemy. This reminds me of the time ABC News interviewed the master-mind behind the Beslan school massacre. The journalist could have easily tipped the Russian government as to the location of that monster, but they didn't. Instead they interviewed him for a story, which tells us volumes about where their priorities lay.
To me, this situation is pretty disturbing. Could you imagine our media talking to sources in the Nazi ranks during WWII? Further, one presumes that the journalists at Time (along with other media outlets) have a certain amount of working knowledge about our military operations and plans in the middle east. Is it that far-fetched to think that some of this information could be passed to the enemy through these channels? That's just speculation on my part, but do we really want a situation to exist where that sort of thing is possible?
The media establishment is just a little too cozy with the enemy for my taste. A little bit of scrutiny on that situation is certainly warranted.