I understand and support the right to know what’s going on in the world, but exactly how is something a secret when it’s revealed in an article in an international news magazine?
Time seems to do this often. There was an article a month ago about Iraq where it says US plans in an invasion of Iraq was seizing a bunch of airfields withen the opening hours of any conflict and flying troops straight into Iraq via them.
Again, how “Secret” are these weapons and plans when anyone who pays for a subscription to TIME can read about them? And does anyone besides me find something disturbing about that?
“Secret weapon” is a media buzzword. The damn network vultures love to feast on this sort of frenzy. However, my two reasons that I’ve seen:
A lot of times that you hear of something, the idea is either already proven obsolete or has been around long enough that they can declassify it. Prime example was the F-117A fighter/bomber. The damn thing was around for over 8 years before the media unveiled it publicly. By then, the writing had been on the wall that something existed, and the actual employment of the stealth fighter was perfected enough to make release of it’s image common knowledge: how to effectively fly and fight with it as well as how to keep the thing out of the wrong hands.
Also, keep in mind they don’t always specifically tell you how it works. Sure, they tell you that it “deflects radar”, but they don’t tell you that it deflects radar through a special imported coating of Kryptonite from Clark Kent’s special stash. In your OP, they don’t tell you which airfields or bases they’re going to seize, or even when. Which leads me to point. . .
Just because an idea exists, doesn’t mean it’s technologically feasable, doable, or even safe to do by the average Joe. Yeah, time travel exists in theory but Homer Simpson isn’t going to start his car, put the transmission in “yesterday” and go off into last week. For the sake of argument, say the government did have the capability of time travel. They sure as hell wouldn’t release the technology to anybody on this earth. Better to let the public think it’s hundreds of years away but possible, than to let them clue in that it currently exists and have Homer start building machines and selling them to the Communists.
Honestly, every time I hear “new secret weapon!” I keep in mind all of the other “NEW” and “IMPROVED” ‘secret’ technologies out there - a NEW secret formula of Tide! (Whiter socks tomorrow!); a NEW AOL (:rolleyes:); a SECRET Chinese blend of tea that will make your teeth whiter, etc. ad nauseam.
Just think of all the stuff that’s under lock and key that you can’t even imagine yet. That’s the really cool stuff. . .
Some of these things, like the seizing airfields, are things that a competent Iraqi general would already be thinking about. Keep in mind the possibility that these things were diliberately leaked to Time, specifically because it’s what we’re not doing.
Espionage is a grand game. Perhaps your children, if they look around enough, will hear about the all strategies employed in this particular match, the full scoreboard and what the lessons learned were.
The weapons are actually pretty secret; Iraq knows that we have some kind of microwave EMP weapon, but they probably knew that anyway. What they don’t know are the exact technical specs of the weapon, how to counter it, how it will actually be used, etc. Basic information (‘they’re making a microwave weapon that will go on cruise missiles’) is nearly impossible to keep secret from various enemy intelligence agencies, so there’s not a whole lot of point in trying. These leaks are either to threaten - ‘hey, we’ve got this, maybe you should consider surrendering’, as an announcement (sort of like ‘leaked’ information about new software), or to mislead.
Yeah, but the US Army is not going to try thaty just because someone told Time that that was the plan. Remember back in Gulf War I where Schwartzkopf (sp) went on about plans for an amphibious assault, but the actual war didn’t include one? It did manage to get the Iraqis to deploy some troops on the coast, though…