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Twitter Leaked Obama's Visit To Afghanistan
hypnosec writes "When you're the President of the United States, sometimes certain activities you're involved in can be hard to keep secret — and yesterday was no exception, after Twitter let it slip that Obama was secretly in Kabul. On Tuesday, the White House released a fabricated itinerary — consisting of all-day meetings in the Oval Office to cover up the fact that Obama was secretly flying to Afghanistan. Whilst only a few US journalists were aware of this event, by mid-morning, a lot more people were suddenly in on the revelation courtesy of Twitter. The first tweet to let the virtual cat out of the bag was Afghanistan news site TOLOnews which reported: 'United States President Barack Obama has arrived in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai.'"
I love to hate on twitter as much as the next slashdotter, but the summary makes it clear that the headline is incorrect and misleading, possibly to the point of damaging Twitter's reputation. What you *meant* to say was:
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Not to be confused with Col.
Just because someone used Twiiter to post something, doesn't make Twitter responsible for that post. Geez...how stupid to say that Twiiter leaked it.
Not sure what Twitter has to do with it. Presumably TOLOnews has a Web site they could have leaked the news on if they hadn't used Twitter?
You can no longer have things public in one part of the world and secret in another. Whether it's making different (politically convenient) statements at home and abroad, or opsec for something like this -- it doesn't work. You gotta keep it secret everywhere, or count on it being public everywhere. Maybe you'll get lucky and it won't come out, but you can't count on that anymore.
That said -- I'm not sure it was a "leak" in any opsec sense, or at least not the twitter part. If the local press were talking about it (on twitter or not), then it was (whether intended or not) public info in Afghanistan, which is the place you'd want it locked down. Maybe the press was supposed to be sitting on it for opsec reasons (protip: if you don't want the press talking about it, the only reliable solution is not telling them), but the fact that the world outside Afghanistan knows is immaterial.
Substitute another (imagine "Telephone leaked Obama's Visit to Afghanistan") to see how truly silly your headline is.
Leak nonexistent trips of Obama and other brass on a semi-regular basis, until the enemy tires of responding to cries of wolf.
More like TROLOLOLONews, amirite?
(crickets)
Ah, the hell with ya.
Anyway, it wasn't leaked until he was on the ground in Kabul? Is that so bad?
Is there something so special about going to Afganistan that required a fabricated story about Obama being here? Why would the government do this? I would really like to know.
Enough said.
Chill out, Mel Gibson. He could have also been there to see how the country was doing.
What this means is info on a presidents trips will be locked down even further. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
He could have also been there to remind them they owe us some money.
Did the president bring a baseball bat?
Like it's not done already?
Get up!
When is the physical cat ever let out of the bag?
Air Force One has to be the most uniquely recognizable aircraft on the planet. It's kind of hard to keep quiet when it flies into someplace, unless they flew in on a nondescript plane.
Was this a controlled leak? The entire article that was linked paints such a negative view on Twitter. The White House, in conjunction with the DoD, makes such a charade out of the "journalists" travelling with him, fake itineraries, and outright denial he's actually in Afghanistan.
The explanation has already been given, he wanted the meetings to be secret so he wouldn't be killed while he was there.
Twitter owns the tweets, tough luck, making twitter the publisher of a national secret. not that it matters..
besides, pretty much all tweets are user generated.. "via twitter" doesn't really add much info as long as twitter is mentioned.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Leaks about Presidential itineraries are not really big news. Thanks for keeping us losers abreast. Even adding in the Twitter reference this is really hardly worth our time.
President Obama made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on the first anniversary of the the killing of Osama bin Laden and signed a security agreement that pledges U.S. support through 2024
They're not. Bush only gets on board Air Force One if the President invites him along to some international event like a funeral or something.
(For those not getting the joke, google "Bush Chimp", and you'll see a whole lot of funny pics)
Twitted or not, when a President can't openly visit a place it has spent 10 years trying to tame, it shows how hopeless things are.
This really did endanger the President as well as national security. I assume that arrests will be involved.
And that, my friend, is called the sunk cost fallacy.
cat
the meeting was only a secret before he showed up. After that well, there he is. This is hardly a leak OR a secret, more like "breaking news".
It would be a leak/secret if it came up before he landed, granted.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Note to self - even though we are pretending to leave in 2014, enforce twitter embargo when we actually leave in 2012, until only the drones remain.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's end of "combat" by 2014 + an additional 10 years of "advising", hence 2024.
AP: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gwyWWYhPoHVpmP31OVDoNN_phjDw?docId=c8271ffb80ef42f6a8d8dddbbf923f51
http://xkcd.com/932/
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Yeah, but support comes in many forms. For example, how we "support" Pakistan or "support" Taiwan or "support" Israel.
I wouldn't be surprised if we set up a (semi-) permanent base there as a launchpad for future middle east and east asia operations. We have bases in Germany and Japan.
Tl;dr, pulling the troops out and continuing to support them are not mutually exclusive.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
All it takes is one motivated person with a Strela (or RPG if they are close enough, and you can't jam or spoof and RPG) who scores a hit in the right spot.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Twitter doesn't leak anything, it just delivers messages.
Also worth noting - The mailman doesn't write the letters you get, and you ISP doesn't compose all those emails you get.
Also, it' not much of a leak he's going there it it's a tweet that he is already there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No necessarily, it could also be a little something called 'lessons learned'. It would only be a fallacy if we knew the out come would not be desirable.
Ex: I bought a ticket to fly some where. I learn that place is a crap whole, but I go anyways knowing I won't have a good time because I have already bought the ticket.
Last time we where there, we just left without wrapping anything up, and the hole was filled by al qaeda.
So, yes there is legitimate non fallacious reasons to stay until a certain level of government is functioning
More of a sunk cost dilemma. IS the risk of just leaving and the government falling apart and being fractured by extremist worth more then the additional cost of leaving in an orderly manner.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Certainly, there are legitimate non-fallacious reasons to stay, but "but to make the lives count" isn't one of them.
That aside, when has nation building ever been successful? Even in Korea, the US didn't so much build a nation as put a million landmine buffer between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". In order for staying to produce a better outcome than pulling out, you need a reason to believe that you can be successful and history is pretty pessimistic on that front.
cat