The Treason Media Strikes Again. Will America Strike Back?

Last Friday, the NY and LA Times ran stories revealing a previously secret operation to track the financial dealings of those who fund the terrorists who are blowing up our soldiers. The plan was legal - even by the skeptical standards of the Treason Media - Congress was briefed, our international allies were cooperating and it was effective, having led to the capture of the Bali nightclub bombing financeers.

So, why blow the secret and set back the War on Terror? Well, if you listen to the feeble bleating of Bill Keller, it was the in the public interest; but in the words of those not defending treason, it was blackmail and part of the continuing War Against Dubya that the Treason Media is waging, no matter how much less safe the nation becomes.

Rather than breaking my Lee Press-Ons ranting longer, here are a bunch of links and comments that are 1000% on the mark. Liberal readers should realize that as much as they despise Team Dubya, by trying to take him down this way, their own necks are now at risk. Do you think the jihadiis are going to make sure they don't kill the useful idiots who have common cause with them?

Ace of Spades HQ says, NYT, WaPo Again Work Tirelessly To Undermine American Security:

The left continues to undermine national security in the most despicable, cynical way. I'm quite sure the reasonable liberals at the NYT and WaPo know full well that programs like this are absolutely vital, and their secrecy is likewise vital. However, they have made the most anti-American and evil sort of decision: While tools like this are vital for saving American lives, they will not permit any Republican President to use them. Only Democratic Presidents are permitted to employ the full panoply of powers for protecting American lives.

It's blackmail, pure and simple. Either let a Democrat into the White House, or we will continue to sabotage American security and, in effect, kill Americans. We will keep secrets when a Democrat is in office, but not a Republican. So we offer the American people a choice: Let the politicians we favor run the country, or we will help Al Qaeda murder you.

Hugh Hewitt had a note from an Iraq-based soldier, "Dear Mr. Keller: Thank you for continually contributing to the deaths of my fellow soldiers":

Your recent decision to publish information about a classified program intended to track the banking transactions of possible terrorists is not only detrimental to America but also to its fighting men and women overseas. I know because I am a sergeant in the army on my second tour to Iraq. As I am sure you don't know because you aren't in Iraq, and I am sure never will be, terrorism happens here everyday because there are rich men out there willing to support the everyday terrorist who plants bombs and shoots soldiers just to make a living. Without money terrorism in Iraq would die because there would no longer be supplies for IEDs, no mortars or RPGs, and no motivation for people to abandon regular work in hopes of striking it rich after killing a soldier.

The double-standard of the NY Times shrieking about the non-outing of Valerie Plame and the jailing of their reporter vs. the treason they commit in publishing REAL top secret info as called out by Andy McCarthy in "They’re Just More Important Than You Are":

And why this last? Remember five years ago, back when they figured “you’re not doing enough” was the best way to bash the Bush administration? Remember the Times and its ilk — disdainful of aggressive military responses — tut-tutting about how the disruption of money flows was the key to thwarting international terrorists. So why compromise that?

Is there some illegality going on in the government’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (exposed by the Times and other news outlets Friday)? No, no laws have been broken. Is there some abuse of power? No, there seem to have been extraordinary steps taken to inform relevant officials and win international cooperation. Why then? Why take action that can only aid and comfort the enemy in wartime?

Because, Keller haughtily pronounced, American methods of monitoring enemy money transfers are “a matter of public interest.”

Really? The Times prattles on about what it claims is a dearth of checks and balances, but what are the checks and balances on Bill Keller? Can it be that our security hinges on whether the editor of an antiwar, for-profit journal thinks some defense measure might be interesting?

Well, here’s something truly interesting: There are people in the U.S. intelligence community who are revealing the nation’s most precious secrets.

The media aspire to be the public’s watchdog? Ever on the prowl to promote good government? Okay, here we have public officials endangering American lives. Public officials whose violation of a solemn oath to protect national defense information is both a profound offense against honor and a serious crime.

What about the public interest in that? What about the public interest in rooting out those who betray their country in wartime?

Not on your life.

National-security secrets? All fair game. If it’s about how we detain, or infiltrate, or defang the monsters pledged to kill us, the New York Times reserves the right to derail us any time it finds such matters … interesting.

But the media’s own sources? That, and that alone, is sacrosanct. Worth protecting above all else.

National-security secrets, after all, are merely the public treasure that keeps us alive. Press informants are the private preserve of the media.

And they’re just more important than you are.

Michelle Malkin has items about the rationalizations being offered for treason and letters people are writing to AG Alberto Gonzales wondering why treason isn't being prosecuted:

To the Attorney General, I want to know when I can expect to see Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Bill Keller, and the publisher of the New York Times , being led in handcuffs into a federal court building by your FBI agents or U.S. Marshalls? I fought for this nation in Vietnam and I'll be goddamed if I am going to stand silently by and see this country go down the drain because the Bush Administration does not have the balls to enforce the laws it has sworn to uphold to protect this country. Kindly step up to your responsibilities while there is still a country left to protect. A reply is expected.

John Boyle

Good luck on that one, John. They don't really care, I sadly suspect, despite Dubya calling the disclosure "disgraceful" and Tony Snow saying, "The NEW YORK TIMES and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public's right to know in some cases might override somebody's right to live." Whoa!!! Don't you just know that the Times and their fellow travellers heard that and screamed, "Right to Life! Keep your laws off my body, Jesus freak, Zionist neocon!!!"

Finally, National Review says "Revoke the NY Times Press Credentials":

The Bush administration pleaded with the newspapers not to publish what they had learned. But these requests, rooted in the national-security interests of the United States, were rebuffed....Yes, the public was being protected. Yes, terrorists trying to kill Americans were being brought to heel. Yes, it appears the program is legal. And yes, it appears the Bush administration made various accommodations out of respect for international opinion and privacy concerns. Despite all that, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller concluded that “the administration’s extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.”

It is a matter of interest mainly to al Qaeda. The terrorists will now adapt. They will find new ways of transferring funds, and precious lines of intelligence will be lost. Murderers will get the resources they need to carry out their grisly business. As for the real public interest, it lies primarily in safety — and what the Times has ensured is that the public today is less safe.

Success in defeating the terrorists at war with us is dependent on good intelligence. Without obtaining it and keeping it secret, the government can’t even find the dots, much less connect them. If the compromising of our national-security secrets continues, terrorists will thrive and Americans will die. It has to be stopped.

The New York Times is a recidivist offender in what has become a relentless effort to undermine the intelligence-gathering without which a war against embedded terrorists cannot be won. And it is an unrepentant offender. In a letter published over the weekend, Keller once again defended the newspaper’s editorial decision to run its TFTP story. Without any trace of perceiving the danger inherent in public officials’ compromising of national-security information (a matter that the Times frothed over when it came to the comparative trifle of Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA employee), Keller indicated that the Times would continue revealing such matters whenever it unilaterally decided that doing so was in the public interest.

The president should match this morning’s tough talk with concrete action. Publications such as the Times, which act irresponsibly when given access to secrets on which national security depends, should have their access to government reduced. Their press credentials should be withdrawn. Reporting is surely a right, but press credentials are a privilege. This kind of conduct ought not be rewarded with privileged access.

Moreover, the Justice Department must be more aggressive than it has been in investigating national-security leaks. While prosecution of the press for publishing information helpful to the enemy in wartime would be controversial, pursuit of the government officials who leak it is not. At the very least, members of the media who report such information must be made to understand that the government will no longer regard them as immune from questioning when it investigates the leakers. They should be compelled to reveal their sources, on pain of contempt.

If we're in a fight for our survival, then it's long past time that we start acting like it. Jail the traitors and their sources, or surrender and call up Al Queda to transfer power and official declare America a dhimmi nation.