Troop blogs show increasing criticism of war

[unhappycamper]

Troop blogs show increasing criticism of war
By Robert Weller - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Sep 9, 2007 13:03:28 EDT

DENVER — With the world being bombarded by all factions on their side on the war in Iraq, U.S. soldiers Internet blogs provided the kind of public relations Madison Avenue would drool over.

Soldiers told of helping Iraqi families, the loss of friends and their dangerous daily missions.

In the past year, as soldiers and Marines return for the second, third or even fourth deployments, and the death toll approaches 4,000, some soldiers began questioning the war.

~snip~

“The toothpaste is out of the tube. And, try as they might, the military’s information nannies are not going to be able to stuff it back in,” said Noah Schatman of Wired Magazine in an e-mail from Taji, Iraq. He said soldiers will pay $55 a month for a private connection.

The military is so petrified it will lose information control screensavers were installed on military computers warning blogs could jeopardize security, said Schatman, who runs Wired’s Danger Room blog and has tracked the unofficial use of the Internet by soldiers.

~snip~

In April, the Army announced new rules on blogging that required soldiers to clear them with a superior. Access to MySpace and some other popular Web sites was blocked. The Army said it was not trying to stop soldiers from speaking their mind, however. And so far, some of them have been.



Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_soldierblogs_070909/

[Maq]

1. Shut the Fiick up soldier

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THERE GOES FREE SPEECH

Army Requires Soldiers to clear blog, email content with Commanders

Wired News | Noah Shachtman | Posted May 2, 2007 06:42 PM

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.
Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.