Military Steps Up War On Blogs 338
An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"
Land of the Free. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a training issue; not a free speech issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many hours of training do they get on the topics of personal publishing, viral marketing, and information security awareness in today's age of instant global communication?
Vietnam lessons (Score:5, Insightful)
The American public is very happy to support war so long as 'war' is sort of an abstract thing happening "over there". They're more than happy to 'support the troops' and make grand speeches about the trials and tribulations and the suffering of "our boys overseas"--so long as they don't -see- it.
Once any given generation -sees- the dirty, bloody, nasty physical reality of war--the coffins coming home, the frontline reports with people getting blown up on camera, the interviews with the troops who have been worn down by months of stress--they stop supporting the 'cause' and start making ugly noises about bringing the troops home.
So they started with disguising the casualties--excluding people from photographing the coffins. No highly visible casualties? Then any losses are, for everyone outside the families--families that are, by and large, "in" the establishment itself (base housing and that sort of thing)--abstract. Just numbers.
Then quietly weed out the embedded reporters. Reasons of security, you know. Have to make sure the press stays 'safe'.
And now making sure that there's as little other information exchange between the armed services and the outside world as possible.
It's all to be expected, really.
Quick correction (Score:5, Insightful)
The distinction is important, and not just semantically.
And I can't figure out how you think they're losing "freedom of thought", as far as I'm aware, the military has no way to know what you're thinking (I hope...) so that part of your post really doesn't make any sense.
soldiers need to organize (Score:1, Insightful)
Soldiers should form a union. The military treats them like garbage--they have no rights, inadequate health care, often inadequate equipment and are forced to perform immoral and illegal acts. When caught, it is *they* who go on trial and not the civilian and military leaders who ordered the crimes.
I'm sure plenty of people will argue that they shouldn't have a union because it will hurt "readiness" or something like that. After all, we need unquestioning killers to defend America, right? Wrong. I can't recall the last time the US military was actually used to defend America. Instead it is used around the globe to oppress and kill, and it only benefits our wealthy rulers to have their unquestioned obedience. If it actually came to defending the US from an invasion, the soldiers would have every reason to step up and defend their country. (But seriously, we spend more on our military than the entire rest of the world combined. What military would invade us?)
The Viet Nam war was ended because soldiers organized and refused to continue fighting the war. Already active-duty soldiers and veterans are organizing against the current wars [ivaw.org]. They deserve our support, and hopefully someday GI's will have some rights and real say in military policy.
Blogs!=News (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When's the next speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Quick correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom has responsibilities. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the important part is that people forget that when you join the military (ex Air Force here) you give up a lot of your rights. You do so willingly. You do so with the expectation that it is for the common good. Don't take this as an ego trip, but for me today's soldiers are the people I look up to. To willfully put yourself in harms way in support of others, the majority of which will never know your sacrifice, is to be a true hero. Not some insipid hollyweird starlet, some sports player, or the latest American idol. These soldiers are of the same stock as firemen and policeman. They step up so the rest of us don't have to. Yet we don't always respect their contribution or what they give up. Some of them might not fully understand the later but I put this as coming from a society of entitlement viewpoint that comes to a screeching halt when you join.
So while I do not find too much wrong in limiting what they can say, especially with the fact that enemy of the day has near instant access to it, I think it does deserve a good amount of thought before it goes too far into restrictive. I know my friends letters from the first Desert Storm were monitored but that was easy to do, all mail went through the military. With the internet a big exposure is created and any attempt to close it appears as an affront. It is, but its one voluntarily entered. The military cannot afford to be all open and exposed. It doesn't work well in that environment. A good military works best when it can control the variables. There are some it can and this is one area where it can do something. Your there to do a job and the people around you don't need extra risk because you slipped up.
Land of the powerful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks the American military gives a shit about anyone's rights hasn't been paying attention. These are the same guys (currently, this is literal - half of the executive branch are old white men from the Reagan administration) who sold weapons to a sworn enemy during wartime in order to fund right-wing guerrillas who were busy raping and murdering everyone from indigenous people to other Americans daring to raise awareness about the genocide. (Read about Dianna Ortiz - she was a nun who was abducted, tortured, and gang-raped for twenty four hours at the direction of the CIA).
Hell, look at Palestine. We hem and haw about freedom, but if we don't like who you elect, we try to economically sabotage and militarily exterminate the new government. This has been consistent US policy since the 50s. (Chile, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama...) America isn't much better than the British Empire was in the 1700s. We just have a much better PR department. By the way, who's suspending habeas corpus now? Oh, that's right...
In short, America does not give a fuck about freedom. We care that you do what you're told. That's why Saddam Hussein is underground and the King of Saudi Arabia is making out with our president in Texas.
Re:soldiers need to organize (Score:2, Insightful)
Neither Clinton nor Obama are promising single payer health care. They both propose half-assed privately run plans which ensure the for-profit health care industry remains intact. Their plans will do little to move us toward a genuine national health care system. Hardly surprising considering the vast sums of money they both receive from the industry.
Re:Vietnam lessons (Score:5, Insightful)
To me it sounded like the best reason FOR showing the pictures.
Re:out of sight out of mind? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't be so melodramatic. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are going to post controversial shit you just omit your name and rank so it does not appear to have AF sanction.
Re:Blogs!=News (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm. Not sure about that. (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is, is free speech actually a right or is it merely a privilege that the privileged are granted? If it is the former, then that is absolute and inviolate. There's no two ways about it. If it is the latter, then yes, certain jobs may withdraw certain privileges that would be granted to others.
What you can't have is it both ways. I honestly don't care which American society wants to define it as being, as it is using an ambiguous interpretation that is far too often more about convenience than about standards in life. Less ambiguity, even if more restrictive, can't be any worse.
im not sure that's a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apropos of a police state: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure referencing two notoriously lawless countries makes the point you think it does.
Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't trust your GIs to read a blog and make up their own minds, you have bigger problems ...
Troops listened to Tokyo Rose [wikipedia.org] during WW2 - it didn't change the outcome.
Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Freedom has responsibilities. (Score:2, Insightful)
That depends on what "others" one is supporting, now, doesn't it?
To put yourself in harm's way in support of innocent people, to defend them against aggression, is indeed heroic.
To put yourself in harm's way to carry out an aggression in support of someone's political or economic interests is to be at best a sucker who mistakenly thinks he's supporting innocents, and at worst a villain who knows exactly what he's doing.
Determining which of these characterizations better fits military enlistees is left as an exercise for the reader. But certainly censoring information received by any group makes it easier to keep them suckers, doesn't it?
Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think our GIs have better things to spend their time on than trying to distill truth from the "facts" vomited by malcontents and partisan hacks.
I agree wholeheartedly! That's why I wonder why those [nytimes.com] "malcontents" [foxnews.com] and "partisan [msn.com] hacks" [cnn.com] aren't being blocked, just honest bloggers.
Re:Quick correction (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's just one of the many relevant pieces from the article:
The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address.
Re:When's the next speech (Score:1, Insightful)
BECAUSE AMERICA IS A DEMOCRACY (Score:5, Insightful)
Vile regimes? How about Saudi Arabia? How about Pakistan? How about our One China policy? You completely missed the point of my first post. America does not care if you're a vile regime, as long as you do what we tell you to do. That's why Saddam had our public support - we removed him from our Terrorist States list in the early 80s so we could sell him weapons. Weapons which he used to exterminate hundreds of thousands of people, which didn't bother us in the slightest. Like the slaughter of the people of East Timor, also in the hundreds of thousands, didn't even cause us to stop selling weapons to Indonesia.
You are paying attention to the smoke and the mirrors, and not the real issues. This is not a pissing contest. This is a matter of injustice, and what we can do about it. So, if saying that the US is as good as Russia helps you sleep at night, by all means, get back in front of the TV and tuck in. Celebrate your freedom by doing fuck all. Trust the government. Ignore the fact that the president today is asking the public to provide immunity to telcos to spy on the public. Ignore the blood in the streets in Baghdad. Ignore the cries of injustice in the inner city. Ignore the fact that we spend more money on the military than any other expenditure in our budget, and more than any other country by any measurement (per capita, GDP, whatever.)
The sad thing is, you are the perfect American citizen. Because you are listless, thoughtless, you follow orders, and you ask no questions. If this sounds familiar to communist ideals, perhaps that should be alarming?
Re:Vietnam lessons (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Freedom has responsibilities. (Score:3, Insightful)
Free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vietnam lessons (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's why the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen who willingly volunteer to fight the wars that preserve our right to dissent and protest ought to be lauded as heroes. If you're one of those reprehensible citizens who choose to impugn them by calling them stupid, ignorant, or whatever makes you feel better about yourself for simultaneously enjoying something and also stating that the manner in which it's provided is horrible, the nagging feeling that keeps you up at night is the truth that those "stupid" "uneducated" "ignorant" fools possess courage, integrity, and a sense of duty that you lack.
Re:Free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When's the next speech (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people in the U.S. don't know the history. (Score:4, Insightful)
What started the violence between the U.S. government and Arabs was the U.S. government, not the Arabs. Having the U.S. taxpayer pay for violence to make a profit works only because most voters don't know the history of U.S. government action.
See, for example, Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA [krysstal.com]. Most or all of that corruption happened for profit, such as kickbacks of U.S. government foreign aid. When the governments of Israel or Pakistan buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers using money from "foreign aid", that is embezzlement of taxpayer money.
For one example of profiting from violence, read How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power [guardian.co.uk] or Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed: Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor [rense.com].
Apparently Slashdot editors agree with at least some of this, because now and for the last 2 months or more, this has been on the main Slashdot page, on the right, under Book Reviews: "The Creature from Jekyll Island [amazon.com] is a compelling look at the history of the Federal Reserve system and asks if it's a system that has run it's course. (Michael J. Ross's review [slashdot.org])"
"The Creature from Jekyll Island" discusses how the U.S. monetary system is manipulated by rich and powerful people for their own profit. It says that wars are started for profit.
The Cooperative Research History Commons [cooperativeresearch.org] is very valuable for those wanting to do their own research.
The poorly edited but very interesting free movie Zeitgeist [zeitgeistmovie.com] explains in three parts that 1) People who believe in myths are easily manipulated. 2) It is common that people are manipulated through fear. 3) The U.S. monetary system is controlled for the profit of a few individuals. (Note that the movie used respected sources for the first part which were later shown to be somewhat in error. The underlying issues are correct, however.)
When you talk about U.S. government action, don't say "we". Whoever does the secret decision making would kill you and your family if they thought you would cause trouble for them.
When people try to calculate the total number the U.S. government killed, they arrive at figures like perhaps 3 million killed directly since the end of the 2nd world war, and perhaps 8 to 11 million total if the people killed by the destabilization the U.S. government caused are also included, not including the people killed in Iraq. Partly the killing happened as a result of the U.S. government invading or bombing 25 countries.
Re:Quick correction (Score:2, Insightful)
While the idea is anathema to you, the military works on a fundamental sort of trust. A trust that believes, "These people need to die, because they will hurt others." If you want to rail against someone, go for this government which has abused that trust so callously. Protest a government who has taken the idealism of at least three generations and drowned it in the sand and mud and blistering heat.