Stupid Is As Stupid Does
What the hell are those old school fools thinking?!?
Military brass is cracking down on the MilBlogs and other electronic media from the front. This is so idiotic in a war that is fought on the propaganda front as much as on the ground. Those guys were our voice from the front, the real news not the biased milquetoast we get from the MSM, and as many as I have visited and some often, Blackfive, OpFor, and Mudville Gazette being some of the best. I have never seen any OpSec violated once, in fact all are very careful not to post anything that could because it could jeopardize them and their friends. I have read some great battle tales, and acts of incredible courage and great kindness. Mike Yon has to be cleared before he can post a dispatch from the front and usually a week or two after it happened. I have read a few of these guys stories that were unloading after a bad firefight and they only spoke of the fight not tactics, or where they were only very vaguely as to their surroundings. We need their stories get to us and they need to know they are being heard.
Its been about a month since I went on a wild ride through the Milblogs, I will after I post this though, after I call my Congressman and his SoCal fellow Rep. Duncan Hunter, Senior GOP on the Armed Services Comm. and POTUS aspirant.
Every conservative bloggers should be all over this, you know what to do, do it now! I know Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin will spearhead the effort to reverse this protocol. Put down a few basic rules and the GIs will comply, the rogue few wouldn't/won't anyway. It will be up to the company commanders, and I would assume most NCOs would agree just from what I heard on Hugh's show tonight.
Update :Lefty racism at its best, check out this rant about Dr.Sowell.and his lefty cohorts.
6 comments:
If the theatre brass think this is necessary as a security measure, we are not going to second guess them. There may be more to this than we know about. Letters home were censored during WWII, so there is precedent...
I was just reading an article in the AUSA (Assoc. United States Army) magazine about IO (Information Operations). The COL who wrote the article talked about the DOD's suspicion of the press and essentially said that the best PR time of the war was in March-July 2003 when teh press had unfettered access to the troops. When the public sees and hears from the TROOPS what they're doing in the field, it wins the opinion of the American public. When you leave reporting of the war up to the MSM, we've lost the public relations war. It's that simple.
I have to dig deeper... I haven't had time to read all the links about this yet. I'm not sure how the DOD can shut down privately owned blogs. Hell, that LT COL from Ft. Hood wrote a scathing op-ed about the screw ups, in his opinion, of generals in the war. If THAT isn't a violation of army regulation I don't know what is, but Blackfive? Give me a break!
The Army is a huge, bloated bureaucracy. We know this from living it, and seeing first hand the fear the DOD has of the outside world. It alientates those of us trying to help win the public opinion war and makes the MSM more suspicious. Stupid idea.
PS.... I've read that this has to do with a breach of sensitive information. If that's true, the military needs to do what it needs to do.
OpSec needs have to be met for sure, they can put down some guidelines and not stifle the whole thing. I did see something about troop arrival dates and places, could that have been why?
If security has been breached then they have a reason to tighten it up but not shut them all down.
After the way Yon has banged heads with the PR guys, I wonder if some jeolosy could play apart as their reports have to be so sterile and Centcom wants to control the message. Look at the difference in the rss feeds I carry.
Hugh posted the regs, the Army heard us and the policy looks good to me. Maybe Foggy Bottom got the message that they are vital.
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