Comments on: 'Tell Them Nothing Till It's Ovber and Then Tell Them Who Won'

'Tell Them Nothing Till It's Ovber and Then Tell Them Who Won'

Postroad — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 10:29:39 -0800

'Tell Them Nothing Till It's Ovber and Then Tell Them Who Won' Governmental and military censorship of battle news. Is it necessary to winning?

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 11:05:28 -0800

No. Next!

By: tetsuo

tetsuo — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 11:55:11 -0800

Sometimes..it's called OPSEC.

By: owillis

owillis — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 12:18:54 -0800

The biggest problem is that the media is so stupid, they report on troop movement that could cost lives. Have you watched any of the press conferences with Rumsfeld? Stupidest questions in the world. "So, Sec. Rumsfeld, you said our soldiers were in Kandahar. How many were there, how much ammunition do they have, how long are they going to be there. Will you be releasing their GPS coordinates?"

By: Steven Den Beste

Steven Den Beste — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 12:49:30 -0800

Is it necessary to winning? Almost always it is, yes. That's because surprise is a necessary element of any battle. The more your opponent knows about what you have and what you intend and what you're doing, the better he can oppose you. Secrecy is often the difference between victory and defeat, and even when blown secrecy doesn't prevent victory it always makes it more expensive (in soldier's lives). Now if there were a way to tell 280 million American citizens what was going on without letting anyone in Afghanistan know, then it would be a great thing. Alas, no-one knows how to accomplish that. Anything that Americans learn, the world will know, including our enemies. It's not that it's desirable to keep citizens in the dark; just that doing so is a side effect of the necessity of keeping our enemies in the dark.

By: laz-e-boy

laz-e-boy — Sat, 24 Nov 2001 01:42:59 -0800

You mean, "Tell them nothing til it's over and then tell them WE won". I can't imagine the US military telling us THEY won...