Posted on Dec 10, 2014
Do the American people need to know all our military strategies?
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Extracting information from prisoners of war is how we learn their plans for the next attack. Ironically, by thwarting the next attack, we are protecting the freedom of American citizens to criticize the methods used to keep them safe.
Having complete three tours in the Middle East, I can assure the American people that there are parts of the world where things are not all rainbows and butterflies. I've seen parents in Iraq act as if they won the lottery because their small children were accidentally killed by U.S. soldiers. No crying or anything, just "how much money are you going to give me?" This attitude is neither right or wrong, it's a result of becoming tempered by living in a world where death is all around you and can be caused as easily by a roadside bomb as from the infection from stepping on a rusty nail.
Giving away TTPs (regardless of circumstances) benefit our enemies by allowing them time to study and counter our methods. Providing the same TTPs to our citizens does nothing to benefit the United States as a whole since the HTVs in question do not recognize nor adhere to American morals and values. Now every morally superior U.S. citizen can arm-chair quarterback every decision included in the study (regardless of how accurate/inaccurate the report).
Having complete three tours in the Middle East, I can assure the American people that there are parts of the world where things are not all rainbows and butterflies. I've seen parents in Iraq act as if they won the lottery because their small children were accidentally killed by U.S. soldiers. No crying or anything, just "how much money are you going to give me?" This attitude is neither right or wrong, it's a result of becoming tempered by living in a world where death is all around you and can be caused as easily by a roadside bomb as from the infection from stepping on a rusty nail.
Giving away TTPs (regardless of circumstances) benefit our enemies by allowing them time to study and counter our methods. Providing the same TTPs to our citizens does nothing to benefit the United States as a whole since the HTVs in question do not recognize nor adhere to American morals and values. Now every morally superior U.S. citizen can arm-chair quarterback every decision included in the study (regardless of how accurate/inaccurate the report).
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 1
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No. However, you have to look at several different levels to determine if the information released is of significant value to the enemy. I don't think releasing tactical strategies can ever be good. Larger strategic information may not be as damning as it is not likely to be of tactical value. I guess you would have to better define what strategies you are thinking about to fine-tune the question. The amount of information that is available about our military strategies has to be confusing to the enemy and still likely to not be immediately valuable. I think it might have been General Patton that said something to the effect of the Army doesn't know what it is doing at any one time so that keeps the enemy confused and unable to determine tactics. If we release large volumes of information the enemy can easily be confused and unable to process that volume of information to be valuable
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