Dana Priest's war on the American War on Terror continues in the Washington Post today, in a piece entitled "Covert CIA program withstands new furor":

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by members of Congress.

Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course.

Incredible! Outrageous! Unbelievable!

President George W. Bush is actually trying to fight an effective, competent war against those who would kill as many Americans as they could, if they could. But in reading the Washington Post, you would think that Mr. Bush, and those carrying forth his policies to protect America and neutralize its enemies, are committing crimes against humanity in an unprecedented manner.

Bill Bennett (via Powerline) put it best on his radio show this morning:

"Here we go again...but at least we have no real new disclosures here--just basically an editorial and roundup of what we already know--thanks to her and the NYTIMES. It really is an editorial masquerading as a news story: she is describing a vast CIA program (what we might call "war footing") known as GST (initials not explained) that is "compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved."

So no details. Good. But here is how she describes GST: "GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world."

There you have it: this is the dark and dirty world we live in. Hardly a police state, hardly a truant officer or dog catcher state: we use foreign intelligence to capture and kill al-Qaeda and move detainees around the world; we look at international finanical records, and eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. If anyone told you we did that at a water cooler would you even blink an eye?

Of course not; you'd go nuts, wouldn't you, if we weren't doing that?

Here's my favorite sentence from this long op-ed cum article: "The top-secret presidential finding Bush signed six days after the Sept. 11 attacks empowered the intelligence agencies in a way not seen since World War II." Good--this means the administration sees the GWOT as important as FDR saw WWII.

Let me say this in conclusion: Priest preens in the piece that because of her revelations, the CIA has had to shut down its so called "black sites" in Europe--this is not something to celebrate: this means the WAPO openly and notoriously changed covert policy and operations, operations that no country before the publicity cared about. I can't say it enough: shame on the WAPO, shame on Dana Priest. It boils down to this: So the WAPO creates a sound and fury and reports that there's a sound and fury; they cause a sturm und drung, and report a sturm und drung; they report a hue and cry has been raised--they raised it.

When this war is over, there will be a lot of accounting to be had, and I hope a 9/11 commissioner who tells us we are not yet safe puts the blame not on this administration which is obviously working hard as you read this article, but on an alien media nation which sees itself not as a reporting agency but as an unelected fourth branch of government doing its level best to change effective policy for the sake of a headline."

Indeed, for a headline the Washington Post is effectively and materially harming America's war effort, and it should be ashamed of its disgraceful conduct. However, I rather doubt that shame is a word that the editors of the Post, and Dana Priest, possess in their vocabulary.

Meanwhile, and appropriately, the Justice Department is opening a probe into the NSA screening program leak, and the Washington Post cannot help itself from taking a shot at the Bush Administration in its article on the matter:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a domestic surveillance program authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, officials said today.

Justice prosecutors will examine whether classified information was unlawfully disclosed to the New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that the National Security Agency had been conducting electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens and residents without court-approved warrants.

The probe is the latest in a series of controversial investigations into leaks of classified information during the Bush administration, including the disclosure of a CIA agent's identity that has resulted in criminal charges against former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The Justice Department has also opened a probe into whether classified information was illegally disclosed to The Washington Post, which reported on a network of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The Post just couldn't help itself from mentioning the Plame matter right after the main focus of its story, even before mentioning the investigation into the European secret prisons. Heh. You think the editors at the Post are just a little annoyed that the investigations may cut off the pipeline of classified information landing on their laps, to be published for all of America's enemies to read?

Scott over at Powerline gives the Post its due:

"Are the Post and the Times pursuing these stories for the sake of headlines, or for political purposes? It seems to me that the most notable political development of 2005 has been the emergence of the Copperhead Democrats as the core of the Democratic Party, abetted by their supporters such as the Times and the Post in the mainstream media. I would add only that I hope there is a reckoning with them well before the war is over."

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Update: Indeed!