"This is Goraldo Oceara reporting live from Tora Tora Tora, Ashkanistan! We're taking some mortar fire here, Bob, you'll have to speak up!"

"Can you tell me where the fire is landing, Goraldo?!"

"Yes, it's hitting about fifty meters to our south, they seem to be firing single rounds at this time. Oh, wait, it's just shifted! It's twenty five meters to our north, Bob! I'm going to have to get down on my Armani Photojournalist's vest to continue shouting into the microphone. Oh, wait, I hear a wh...!"

"Joraldo? Joraldo? I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be having some technical difficulties..."

Technical difficulties? Yeah, technically that reporter just committed suicide.

Although to my knowledge that exact situation has not yet occurred, the way that things are going it's bound to happen soon. Unfortunately, it probably won't be the reporter but some poor Marine or soldier who takes the round.

In war one of the prime necessities is to deny the enemy information. And that's not so odd or unusual, companies do the same thing all the time, they refer to it as "proprietary." But if a company officers slips the information to the press, and they broadcast it, the worst that is going to happen is "downsizing." When the press releases military information, real-time, urgent details of an ongoing operation, whether by "reporting live from the front" or releasing details to AP, it permits the enemy to know when and where Joe Dogface or Jarhead is going to be. They are, in effect, acting as spies or at least "spotters" for the enemy. During the Gulf War I was watching a live CNN shot from Israel . A reporter and a cameraman were on the roof of a hotel in Jerusalem , getting pictures of SCUD missiles landing outside of town. A former Israeli officer, in New York , noted that they were providing Saddam Hussein with excellent targeting data. The cameraman quickly zoomed back out. You think that the press would be able to buy a clue, or at least find a dime. But they apparently can't.

The other day a friggin idiot named Matt Kelley, a stringer for AP, who ought to be put against a wall with John Walker and shot, released the fact that a unit of Marines took off at a certain time and landed in a certain area. And that data, due to the wonders of the information age, was out on the internet while the helicopters were still on their way back to base.

The idiot might as well have called up somebody in the Taliban and said: "Hey, Mr. Taliban, sir. A company of our Marines just took off and they seem to be landing near Bagram. Why don't you run down there and shoot them."

What an idiot. An ignoramus. A Maroon! Either that or a person who actively wants to kill United States Marines. He might as well convert to Islam and pack explosives in his shoes! No, I take it back, he's doing such a great job for Al Quaeda that if I were Osama I'd order him to keep his day job!

Get a clue people. We're talking about lives here, the lives of American men and women, people who are out there trying to make the world safer for you and your children. These guys aren't making Nicaragua safe for United Fruit, they're trying to make New York safe for CNN and CBS and NBC. Oh, and all the "little" people as well.

GIVE 'EM A BREAK!

The networks should think long and hard about at least a one hour tape delay on all material coming from the front, with the same going for print release. And journalists, producers and editors should be hammered by their bosses for releasing real-time operational data, certainly reprimanded publicly, arguably fired. The media is already losing share due to their inability to clue into a simple fact that ordinary Americans grasp: we're in a war and it's a war for all of us Americans. Arguably a war to defend Western Civilization. The least that CNN and AP and Fox could do is accept a few hours to consider whether a piece of information should be released and a modicum of sense about what should not be released. Information may want to be free, but Marines don't want to die for ratings.

Return to Op-eds