"Loose Lips Sink Ships"

When reporters asked President Franklin Roosevelt where Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle's raiders launched their daring 1942 raid on the Japanese mainland, he puckishly answered, “from our new secret base at Shangri-La.”

Contrast Roosevelt's slyness with Sen. Diane Feinstein's (Democrat) recent comment regarding the secret location of the launch sites for Predator hunter/killer drones — “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.”

Sen. Feinstein's defense for discussing this highly sensitive information, that she was only repeating what she read in the papers, is,at best, unconvincing and, at worst, a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.

It is true that the Washington Post first reported Predators operating out of bases in Pakistan, and the senator's flak catcher and professional liar Philip J. LaVelle says that this report was what she was referring to. But there is a difference between making an allegation in a local paper and having the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (an oxymoron in itself) confirm it. After all, her remark was “as I understand it,” not “according to the papers.”

If the U.S. is operating Predators out of Pakistan as the senator alleged, al Qaeda and its allies are certain to seek ways to take them out. Terrorists have lately been mounting increasing numbers of attacks inside Pakistan on the coalition support infrastructure. Once they determine where the Predators are based (near Islamabad, according to reports), they will no doubt make destroying them a high priority.

Fighting an intelligence war requires, at least, a smattering of intelligence in our elected leaders. Democrat Senator Feinstein is an example, one of many in Congress, of a lack of the same.

This incident reinforces the growing impression that when it comes to national security policy the Democrats are not ready for prime time.