Pentagon at order of White House leaked to Bob Woodward that CIA was running a covert military op in Pakistan. Von Clausewitz would roll in his grave.

The following report from Justin Fishel was posted to the Fox News Cable website during Fox's 6:00 PM ET news hour, which used virtually the same words to report on the scandal Fishel outlined in the post.

If you call for President Obama's impeachment after reading the news, save your breath. Obama is only the most extreme example of how much the U.S. regime has perverted Karl von Clausewitz's dictum that war is an extension of policy by other means. Von Clausewitz, while recognizing the importance of politics, did not mean that war was to be used as a tool to serve the personal ambitions of one man.

Von Clausewitz would also be horrified by the Pentagon, which has moved so far away from the concept of war that the Secretary of Defense saw nothing strange about denouncing WikiLeaks because they risked the lives of ISAF troops and their Afghan informants -- while he chose to remain silent about leaks fed to Bob Woodward. The leak about the CIA-led covert military operation in Pakistan needlessly risked the lives of the Afghan fighters and Americans in that country and the Pakistanis aiding their mission.

Suggestion: If America's politicians and the defense establishment are having such a hard time recalling the meaning of war, relocate all their closest family members to Afghanistan.

Within 30 seconds of setting those families down in towns across Afghanistan, all U.S. war planners from Obama on down would suddenly remember von Clausewitz's other famous dictum:

"The first and most important rule to observe...is to use our entire forces with the utmost energy. The second rule is to concentrate our power as much as possible against that section where the chief blows are to be delivered and to incur disadvantages elsewhere, so that our chances of success may increase at the decisive point. The third rule is never to waste time. Unless important advantages are to be gained from hesitation, it is necessary to set to work at once. By this speed a hundred enemy measures are nipped in the bud, and public opinion is won most rapidly. Finally, the fourth rule is to follow up our successes with the utmost energy. Only pursuit of the beaten enemy gives the fruits of victory."

Here's the Fox report:

If D.C. Can Leak, Why Can’t WikiLeaks?
By Justin Fishel
Fox News; September 23, 2010 - 6:23 PM [Eastern time]

WASHINGTON -- Pentagon leaders seemed unfazed by classified revelations published in Bob Woodward's new book "Obama's Wars", an apparent double standard compared with the Pentagon response to WikiLeaks, a self-proclaimed whistle-blowing website that earlier this year revealed classified military video depicting the death of two innocent civilians in Iraq and later published 76,000 secret CIA and Pentagon documents.

In July, at the time of the WikiLeaks document dump, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters the consequences could be "dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world."

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, took it one step further when he said people behind WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

But when Washington insider Bob Woodward published a 380-page book that included detailed information about a classified CIA-run, 3,000 strong Afghan paramilitary force operating inside Pakistan, nothing was said. Such a politically sensitive revelation could put US service members and their Afghan allies at risk, but yet the Pentagon remained silent.

And when Woodward writes that Afghan Ambassador Karl Eikenberry called Afghan President Hamid Karzai a "manic depressive" saying, "he's on his meds, he's off his meds," Secretary Gates offered no criticism.

"Well, I can't say, because I haven't read the book," Gates said when asked about the contents, much of which has been printed on the front page of the Washington Post in the last two days.

And then there were Woodward's revelations about politically sensitive conversations between Pakistan President Asif Zardari and the CIA about the escalating assassination campaign of Al Qaeda leaders by CIA drones in Pakistan's tribal areas.

"Kill the seniors," the Pakistan President reportedly told the CIA chief. "Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me."

The White House actively cooperated with Bob Woodward even ordering some in the Pentagon to talk to the Washington Post journalist. Sources tell Fox that classified conversations from inside the Situation Room were so detailed they could have only come from a transcript.

In the past Secretary Gates has ordered a crackdown on leakers following a spate of classified revelations during his tenure, but there was no outrage today because in this case it was the Pentagon and White House, officially, that provided the leaks.