The U.K.'s Prince Harry has been deployed to Afghanistan since before Christmas. The deployment happened under a veil of secrecy that was broken by a couple of foreign magazines and then plastered all over the Drudge Report in the last couple of days.
Now the prince's time in Afghanistan may be cut short thanks to all the unwanted publicity.
Normally I support Drudge, but not in this instance.
All Harry wanted to do was serve in a combat area as a soldier of the United Kingdom. He was denied permission to deploy with his unit when it headed to Iraq last year out of fear that the prince would be kidnapped by al-Qaeda or some other group, which threatened to cut his ears off. So when the British Ministry of Defense decided it would be all right for him to deploy to Afghanistan, it was under the understanding that the media wouldn't reveal where Prince Harry was or what he was doing.
Major news outlets had agreed to the news blackout to protect the prince from al-Qaeda and the Taliban and give him a chance to prove his mettle in a combat area as he had wanted.
It's true that the Drudge Report is not a news organization and was probably unaware of the news blackout agreement, but still, this is the Prince's life that is being messed around with. Other American news organizations, such as CNN, knew it and decided to abide by it until it was splashed all over Drudge's web site.
This is very unfortunate. Hopefully the prince stays safe. But now that the cat's out of the bag, how long can it be before the inevitable question is asked by his commanding officers: can Harry stay in Afghanistan, or will he become the bullet magnet that he's joked about previously?
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