This is a discussion and a re-seed of a piece taken off by the newsvine staff because some Obama follower didn't like it. Too bad, I think. The title did not editorialize, as the Newsvine email suggested, since the title is perfectly clearly reflected in the content of the article. Here's the original summary:
This was no garden-variety intelligence leak. The original revelation of this stunning intelligence success, tantalisingly stripped of important detail, had all the ear-marks of a strategic placement by a senior Obama administration official, aiming to maximise political credit to the president in an election season. Seemingly within hours, statements or media appearances were forthcoming from the National Security Council, the president's senior counterterrorism advisor, the FBI, Secretary of State Clinton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Each public revelation was carefully if pathetically designed to reveal a minimum of operational detail, while promoting some personal, political, or bureaucratic agenda. The cumulative effect on the press, predictably, was like throwing chum on the water before a school of sharks. In no time, full details of the nature of the operation and how it had been conducted were being bandied about; if there were any operational intelligence equities still to be protected, they were thoroughly compromised within little over a day....
As the Director of National Intelligence launches an investigation, he does so knowing that the real culprits - in the White House and on Capitol Hill - are beyond his reach.
Steadily, progressively, but largely unremarked upon, the American political leadership is marching down a now-familiar path, with the latest Yemeni bomb plot apparently contributing as both private motivation and public justification. In recent weeks, the White House has announced a stepped-up drone campaign in Yemen, while for the first time publically acknowledging and trying to overtly build public support for their use. We are told in press reports that just as the US government has long since lowered the threshold employed for use of drone-launched missile attacks in Pakistan through resort to so-called "signature strikes", missile operators in Yemen are being permitted to fire at targets engaged in activities deemed "suspicious", even when the target personalities themselves are unknown....
A steady drumbeat of leaked intelligence analyses cites significant swaths of territory in Yemen allegedly falling under the control of al-Qaeda, as large-scale attacks against "hundreds" of supposed "al-Qaeda militants", launched by Yemeni forces with US assistance, gain momentum. I do not claim deep knowledge of developments in Shabwa Privince, but when I hear significant numbers of tribal militants being referred to as al-Qaeda operatives, and AQAP, a small organisation dominated by non-Yemenis, being alleged to have political control of significant parts of Yemen, I react with some scepticism, and some suspicion.
One wonders how many Yemenis may be moved in future to violent extremism in reaction to carelessly targeted missile strikes, and how many Yemeni militants with strictly local agendas will become dedicated enemies of the West in response to US military actions against them.
In short, the article is about the same old path, striving for electoral votes here in the states, killing foreigners, creating real enemies where none existed. The Vine deletion is also a route I've witnessed before: deleting articles, with a lack of good reason, because some "insider" to the vine group deems the title is a bit too harsh for YouKnowWho.
Folks, he's the Dummy who wanted this Macho information leaked. It's an election year. He thinks he can win by looking tough.
