[dennisw]

The writer of that CBS story, David Martin, comes off as a totally self-serving ass.

I believe you are being too kind in your description. Clearly the author is an arrogant person who believes that the people running the missions cannot be trusted and leaking information hinders their purposes which is how he, the reporter, can exercise control.

I honestly believe that leaks have a moderating effect on the actions of government -- that whenever a policy gets too far out of line with standard practices someone on the inside will be outraged enough to leak it.

He simply forgets or ignore the most threshold issue: it puts our troops in a more dangerous position, gives our enemy a greater understanding of our mission and lessens the chances of our success.

While doing this, he more than likely believes he is doing a great service to humanity. That's the problem with arrogance. It's blinding. The more you practice it, the less your are capable of seeing the truth.

I've found that arrogant folks always seek to control others and invariably seem to overassess their own abilities. This leads them to become arm chair quarterbacks opining on issues which are simply out of their element.

In fact, the major problem with Operation Anaconda was that the special operators were launching missions without informing the overall commander quality that is most distressing.

These folks always choose one example to validate their position. What about the rapid destruction of the Taliban by a small group of folks who had great latitude in their scope of actions, relying mostly on initiative, creativity and agressive action. Was this successful? Absolutely, and I doubt overall command was aware of each significant action.

Control freaks. Liberal through and through. Gambling with other people's chips.