The blogging ayatollahs
The Dot Qom Boom: Tim Blair points out that the Ayatollahs and Islamic religious clergy are being trained and helped to set up their own blogs. In the meantime, Blackfive notes that the DOD is discouraging American milbloggers.
Commentary
Sure, the two types of blogs are really apples and oranges. For example, the ayatollah's aren't out on ops. But given the ideational nature of the War on Terror, we can't afford to leave the field to the enemy as a general principle. So it's still something to think about.
posted by Ticker at 10/18/2006 06:03:00 PM
5 Comments:
DOD is discouraging American milbloggers
Sure, shut down the pajama boys and let the Mainstream Media have a monopoly on painting our military for the American public. That strategery is just as brilliant as the rest of the campaign in Iraq.
How many divisions does the Pope have?
Teresita, I don’t think that’s it, I believe it is a control issue, where the “Ayatollahs and Islamic religious clergy” have a free hand to say what they want about anybody or anything truth or false, except for their masters, which they have no doubts about their mission and actions. US Milblogs can be sued, investigated, or with past history give out classified info, I believe chain of command wants to limit damage, not leave the playing field.
I use the Rojo reader and can see blog posts from sites that are blocked by the network. If the blog only distributes summaries in the feed, I can't follow the link back to the blog site to view the entire article.
Mail censordhip was a common thing in WWII, all GI mail was censored, therefore it is not a huge step for them to assume that they have the right to censor milblogs for classified information or even information that the censor thinks should be classified.
I can see the necessity for it but the precess is possibly subsject to grat abuse therefore formal rules need toi be set up whereby the milblogger can appeal, based on censorship of personal views or opinions. If the blogger wrote for instance that all the troops below a certain rank in his unit were of the opinion that their lives were being put to un-neccesary risk by high command level decisions and ROE's that is certainly something that is a personal opinion, it might or might not be so. I can certainly see a censor getting a headache over s post like that on the net.
I have no ideas on what to do about it though. At what level is this blockage being done? That is, is it from DOD down, theater wide, division level, battalion or what?
I think it more appropriate to control and limit what the MSM do, but that seems to be even thornier.
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