Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face

30 October 2006 

In the last couple weeks there has been numerous articles in various papers around the country as well as lots of buzz in the blogging community about the Pentagon trying to pull the plug on military bloggers. As is usual with the Pentagon someone somewhere has gotten their fragile little egos hurt--maybe they have never really served their country in the heat of battle or maybe they are like Kerry not a TRUE hero or may be someone is just on a major power trip. Whatever the case may be the screws are being put to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to reign in what they tell the American public as well as the international community via the internet.
Im all for OPSEC, I do not want our military guys in unneeded harms way--yes it goes with the territory but we can limit how much danger they face. I believe that we should use every resource to aquire the best intel to keep our guys ahead of the enemy and give our boys the upper hand where ever they may be engaing the enemy. But when we are, as many have pointed out, losing the media war and the war of public opinion the Pentagon has decided to kill off by startvation and slow torture one part of the campagin that could provide us with the greatest benefit. That being the independent reporting of military bloggers.
I have been reading the blogs of military guys serving in various locales around the world and yes I have read somethings that Im not sure I would agree with, totally within the boundaries of OPSEC, but some of the issues are just the higer-ups on power trips. Citing issues like pics of the front gates of the bases in Iraq--hello please tell me that our military leaders are not naive enough to believe that we dont have the enemy in the bases on a daily basis giving intel to the insurgents about how the camps are layed out and what security measures are being used--because we do. Or slamming kids who post pics of themselves geared up to go out and that the ammo belts shows the tracer count to the enemy--hello some of Ossama's men served in our military, some with our most elite forces --they already knew the tracers count along with the weapons that we carry and the capabilities of those weapons. Outside of the use of real names of soldiers I have not seen any real OPSEC violation--now in the defense of the Pentagon and the VA NG Unit that is now playing the role of 'Big Brother' in the milblogging world, I have not read every single blog posted by every single service member. But without reading a single military blog I can find out the locations of our troops, their camps and the number of soldiers on the ground. I can access maps and satilite images of the areas that are in the fore front of the war on terror. I can find all the intel that I need to launch an effective attack against our boys in uniform.
If the Pentagon stifles the voice of the military blogging community they will be giving the war away. What no amount of leadership or speeches by the highest leaders can do is give reality to the masses about what our boys are doing and how they are doing it. When you read a soldier's account of a raid or patrol and hear about his/her interaction with the local people good or bad you can form a "fair and balanced" evaluation of what is happening on the ground 8,000 miles away. When Americans turn on the TV for the news they hear how soldiers were killed and how the death squads killed numerous more civilians. The press is full of stories of what we did wrong or of what went wrong--if the Pentagon wanted the American public to be in this for the long haul they would be highlighting these bloggs and referring the media to them for their realistic content. Blogs of servicemembers could be used to point out that 100 service members signing a petition to get out of Iraq is a negligiable minority and that most troops know why we are there and believe in making Iraq and Afghanistan safe places for the people there. The Pentagon should making the stories that these bloggers tell recieve double the attention that one nay sayer here or there receives.
Instead the Pentagon is screaming OPSEC and attempting to starve the one hand that could pull them out of the media tail spin that partisan politics has gotten them into.