Whatever It Was Was Not Espionage
Most of the leak subjects were things we all should have known
Links are at the end, in the pixel museum. Don’t it always seem to go.
Can anyone name the secret which should have been withheld? The Bidennaires can’t: Asked about the damage inflicted by the distribution of the stolen documents, Biden said “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”
This includes the disclosure that special forces from the U.S. and several allied countries are operating in the country. The war department says, sort of, that they’re serving only in an advisory capacity, which may resonate with persons of a certain age or historical bent.
Our Rangers or Seals or whomever in Ukraine may genuinely be advisers rather than combatants; regardless, the people paying the tab the government is running up over there ought to have known about it.
And maybe they, we, should also have known that our government thinks a Ukrainian victory is unlikely. Maybe this is something people should have known to consider when discussing the merits of negotiation or interminable war, and of spending “whatever it takes” or setting some limits.
Nobody is disadvantaged by the spilled secrets except our government. Certainly the Russian and Ukrainian governments know what the other’s situation is. Certainly our allies know we spy on them. Obviously all the governments involved knew about the special forces.
The risk here, and perhaps the reason the administration are attempting to minimize the significance of the leak, is that it can only empower domestic opponents of their Ukraine policy and spending.
Nothing to see here, move along move along.
The revelations about Taiwan’s near-total lack of preparedness to face a mainland China military many times its size, and our own surveillance blind spots there, are similarly something which will have been known to all the governments involved, but not necessarily to their citizenry. With the U.S. moving toward an open commitment to Taiwan’s defense, these are things the public should know.
All that said—when was the last time a U.S. administration let public opposition preclude a military adventure? End one, maybe, after some period of ghastly destruction, but a president’s homicidal heart wants what it wants.
An informed public is a frustrated public, and a depressed one.
The government evidently plans to level an Espionage Act charge against the guy who leaked the documents. What he did, though, wasn’t espionage—he wasn’t spying for anybody except the guys in the chat room. He’s definitely bent in the head (whom among us?), but he’s no more a spy than he is a whistleblower.
Spill it all, all the secret tea.
Splendid music
Both new to me, and I’m enthused about both.
Rozi Plain, “Prize;”1 This Is The Kit, "Off Off Oddities."2
That, Comrades, is all there is
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Be well, take care.
Pleased to note I am not alone in my initial observations.