A US satellite imagery blackout over the Gulf is blinding journalists

One of the tasks of military intelligence is bomb damage assessment. In other words, did the thing we wanted to destroy get destroyed? This is critically important information that enables future operations planning. For example, if you bombed missile launch sites one day, can operations be safely conducted in that area, or were inconsequential storage sheds hit and all the launchers are still there?

So, when journalists are publishing pictures of “the still-smoking operations center at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait”, they’re performing a valuable military intelligence function for Iran. If they could act with a little more self restraint, maybe even a touch of national interest, this problem wouldn’t exist.