Publicizing Wartime Plans Is Reckless
The Media's Demand To Know Our War Plans Displays Total Ignorance
One of the most ludicrous criticisms of President Trump’s war against Iran is that “he has no plan.”
As we will see, the President’s future strategic and tactical actions are shrouded in utmost operational secrecy. As they should be.
But the national press and our political commentariat - five days into this historic war - are demanding that the President tell us about all of his war plans.
Should we tell the surviving Iranian Mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards what our warfighting plans, goals and strategic moves are?
Asked another way, did Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and President Franklin Roosevelt tell the public when and where the D-Day landings would occur during World War II?
Even after D-Day, the American public did not know Roosevelt’s war plans or post-war plans. They were continually in the dark about future American military actions in both the European and in the Pacific theaters.
As it should be.
Today I saw a sign advertising the International Spy Museum which is in my home city of Washington, D.C. Its slogan is “designed to deceive.”
In warfare, deception and secrecy is paramount. For example, is the CIA working with Kurdish and Azerbaijani armed forces - and other Arab armies - to launch ground attacks into Iran to begin the dissolution of the Iran state?
Is the dismemberment of Iran into specific provinces filled with non-Persian minorities part of Trump’s plans? Note that half of Iran’s provinces are populated by minorities, many of whom detest the regime.
Or did the public know that since last summer the Trump administration had privately developed detailed plans with the U.S. Development Finance Corp to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees to shipping companies traveling through dangerous waters?
It’s already clear in the very early days of this war that is the result of extraordinarily deep planning in many disparate fields.
We are seeing on display smart planning in strategic military, intelligence, diplomatic, commercial and economic planning. It’s now clear much of this detailed war and post-war planning has been in the mix at least since last summer’s “Operation Midnight Hammer” against Iran.
But here is a sampling of the insanity of the critics who slam the President for not having any real military plans:
Brian Stelter, the chief media analyst for CNN explained, “Trump clearly has no plan or intention to explain to the American people why we went to war with Iran and what happens next and what victory looks like.”
Well of course the President did clearly say we went to war over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, their ballistic missiles and their oppression of the Iranian people, murdering as many as 40,000.
Did Stelter miss this?
But he slams Trump because he won’t tell us, “what happens next and what victory looks like.”
Shelter, of course, isn’t a Pentagon reporter or a military reporter. He’s the network’s chief media analyst. And telling us what happens next is a national security secret - as it should be.
Or let’s read what The New Republic’s, Hafiz Rashid wrote about the war. “Donald Trump really doesn’t have an Iran war plan.”
Is Rashid a Pentagon reporter or a military analyst? Did he serve in the American military?
No, he’s an “associate writer” at the New Republic. His longest stint at the news organization is as its “social media editor.”
Or let’s hear from the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. He told viewers, “Trump’s War with Iran: No Plan, No Exit Strategy.” I won’t address Stewart’s deep experience with military planning.
For a lark, I decided to ask Google AI about Stewart’s military experience. It shot back to me immediately in its first line, “Stewart (comedian/host) does not have U.S. military experience.”
Now here’s David Corn, a long-time Leftwing Washington fixture and Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones Magazine.
The title of his essay is: “Massive” War Launched by a Man With No Plan. Again.”
Corn wrote, “Trump has no plan for Iran. Just blow shit up, kill some people, and hope for the best. It is the war of a Mad King.”
And here is Robert Reich, President Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, who has no military experience.
Actually, Reich was facing conscription during the Vietnam War while studying at Oxford. But he failed the physical exam. Google AI states Reich never had any military experience.
Yet here the former Labor Secretary dramatically wrote, “Trump said Monday that the United States would continue attacking Iran for “whatever it takes.”
But what’s the “it” in that sentence?
Reich may have a bit of amnesia about the slogan, “Whatever it takes.” This was the continuing mantra for President Biden and his national security team when they loudly claimed they would “whatever it takes” for Ukraine to win its war with Russia - now entering its fifth year.
But here is another clueless Reich comment: “Neither Trump nor anyone else in his regime has provided any clarity about how we’ll know whether we’ve ‘won’ this war.”
“He has no endgame.”
Really? How do you know this, Secretary Reich?
Sadly, we are living in an age where political commentary and guesswork is apparently the mantra of those who politically oppose this President no matter what he does.
Disappearing from their mantra is a discussion of how the Mullahs gunned down their own citizens.
Or how the mullahs for 47 years screamed “Death To America.”
Or how they deliberately and cynically spawned chaos, military warfare and terrorism throughout the Middle East.
Or how they have been determined to build a nuclear arsenal to vaporize Israel.
I alert these complainers: actual war planning, operations and goals is a highly classified secret. You have no right to this information.
Stephen Bryen, a former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and an outstanding expert in security strategy told me what’s obvious to any military authority: “The Department of War and Israel planned their operations over many months.”
He adds, “Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant, dumb, or both. A military operation can’t happen on the spur of the moment. The plans need to be in place, coordination tested, communications and codes secured, and many other steps.”
Much of our political commentariat today is displaying bold ignorance.
Do they have any sense of responsibility towards our fighting forces and diplomats who are in harm’s way?
Will they wake up to their misconduct?
Regretfully, I seriously doubt it.