NY Times: Useful Idots

The New York Times proves yet again to be the definition of the term "useful idiot." Within hours of publishing the story leaking classified info about tracking movement of terrorist funds, the same story was published on the terrorists' Al Jazeera web site. The Al Jazeera article discusses details of how banking data is obtained, and what types of data is obtained. Al Jazeera also describes the ever-shifting nature of the Global War On Terror, and how strategies are constantly adjusted.

"We know the terrorists pay attention to our strategy to fight them, and now have another piece of the puzzle of how we are fighting them," (Deputy White House press secretary, Dana) Perino said.

"We also know they adapt their methods, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement officials."

The White House had asked that the story not be run, but the NY Times and the Los Angeles Times both ran the story any, in spite or requests not to do so "for national security reasons". Conservative bloggers, Fox News, and other news entities have been actively speaking out against the publishing of the story.

Useful Idiots

The term "useful idiot" was used during the Cold War era to describe the Soviet attitude towards Soviet sympathisers within the US. The actual origins of the term are obscured, but are strongly rumored to have been coined by Lenin. In a private memo during the Genoa conference of 1922 considering post-WW I economic reconstruction, Lenin wrote

Henderson is as stupid as Kerensky, and for this reason he is helping us.

It suits us that Genoa be wrecked... but not by us, of course.

In effect, when an opponent takes a position to "be fair", an unscrupulous individual, group or government finds it useful to take full advantage of their opponents compromised position. Just as the Soviets found comments by American peace activists and Soviet sympathisers to be useful to their cause, so to stories by the NY Times and LA Times which disclose classified security operations are useful to the al Qaeda terrorists.

In WW II, the slogan was "loose lips sink ships." Today, it's quite the opposite.

UPDATE: I know it's been a while since I've been actively blogging. Oh well, life happens. I feel that this is important enough to write about, and draw some supportive attention to. Thanks to the following:
Cao's Blog
Blogs For Bush
Dr. Sanity
The Daily Brief
Neo-Neocon
Michelle Malkin
Moonbattery
Outside The Beltway
The Nose On Your Face