By Paul Roper
“No Easy Day” centered around death of Osama bin Laden
After a couple of days digesting recent events surrounding the release of former Navy SEAL Mark Owen’s book entitled, No Easy Day which centered around the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, I am inclined to think it is really a case of much ado about nothing, or is it? The book takes us through the preparation and execution of the raid that ends with Osama bin Laden’s death, and now, we are being led to believe that more than a year after the fact, that somehow the information that was divulged in the book is going to affect our efforts somehow in dealing with future operations.
Let’s take a ride down memory lane and re-visit what was supposed to be the “most transparent administration in history” as we were told in the run up to the 2008 election, we were even going to view the debate over the largest government program, healthcare, of the last seventy-five years on C-Span. We all know how that turned out, that didn’t happen. As a matter of fact, I recently read an article that was published in The Economist in June of 2011, that had more interesting facts, and needless to say it is very consistent with the way this administration has dealt with leaks. The article, “Return of the plumbers” was written about the way the Obama Administration was dealing with WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, and other cases of other alleged leakers. The article made some observations that quite frankly were astonishing, saying that “Mr. Obama and his Justice Department have pressed criminal charges against five suspected leakers under the Espionage Act, more than all other administrations combined, including Nixon’s”, startling indeed for all the promises made about transparency; and, when Mr. Obama himself was quoted as saying about whistleblowers that “such acts of courage and patriotism …should be encouraged rather than stifled.” More hollow words. In an Associated Press Article published on Yahoo, Mr. Panetta wants to hold Mr. Owen to any agreement that he signed, but if I remember correctly, it was this administration that leaked details of their raid, I guess we forgot that.
Let me be clear, I am in no way advocating either the breaking of any contract, or putting any of our armed forces heroes in any danger, but rather pointing out the double standard that the Obama administration has lived by, saying one thing and then doing another with a pandering liberal press never holding their feet to the fire or questioning any of the outlandish moves this administration has taken toward transparency. A further problem has been that this administration’s penchant for over-classifying information that otherwise would not be. In the same Economist article, they note the following, “According to the Information Security Oversight Office, a government agency, the administration created 224,734 new secrets in its first year in office, up 22.6% the year before.” What is comical is that Mr. Obama in March 2011, was given an award for his diligence for transparency, but sadly, the press that he loves so much was not present as it was given behind closed doors!
Again, I do not advocate putting our military’s lives in harms way, so that someone can make a few bucks and get his fifteen minutes of fame, but, based on Mr. Owen’s 60 Minutes interview which I saw, I do not believe that is what is happening.
The bigger issue is that no one has questioned this administration’s alleged commitment to transparency and then out dueling Richard Nixon for secrecy. At some point, we all have to recognize the double standards that this administration has employed in its four years of governing.