One Marine Wife Speaks Her Mind About The OPSEC Order Censoring MILBlogs From Iraq

This Marine Officer's wife choses not to blog about the War in Iraq or GWOT or any other issue directly pertaining to it because she finds it a demoralizing conflict of interest, she is not currently on the front line in Iraq, and she feels the wanna-bes who insist on second guessing this war from the comfort of their local Fourbucks are dumber than average, and not merely because they paid a five spot for bean water and cow juice.

Many. Many have asked, "What do you think of (fillintheblank) SECDEF decision?" , or "What does Hunky Husband think about Operation (fillintheblank) ?" I was even approached at CPAC to do a very high profile weekly online column as a military spouse. That was a really hard one to turn down. REALLY.

Because I am nothing if not Half of a Whole.

And my other Half is still subject to the whimsical authority of the Secretary of Defense, who works, quite literally two doors down from him. Hunky Other Half is still subject to The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and I spread Hunky's toast with the butter that comes straight from the Uncle Sugar teat every first and fifteenth. Sorry. This Whole isn't going to piss in its pudding for any flag waving, self aggrandizing glory.

There are folks who deserve it far more than I, and can speak with direct authority because the heat of battle and the smell of GPR gives them a heady selflessness that I do not possess.

Does that make me a weak kneed DoD supplicant? If you insist. But I prefer to retain the ability to hear the inside scoop (mostly from other close sources and peers, not actually HH) and form educated, if generalized, opinions which I have no trouble subtly sharing with others in this forum. Besides...I have to save something for the bestseller...right?

I respect the soldiers for their brave candor and they should be allowed to blog freely about their first person experiences from the otherwise positive information vacuum created by a Department of Defense who is insistent on winning hearts and minds when what it needs to win is a war.

Active Duty will not compromise their own safety (duh.) and if they are critical of the way the war is being executed, then tough chickens for the Generals who, in seeking to silence them, only highlight their moral authority to point out that Congress is full of pussies the Emperor is naked.

All that said. Hear me well. Under no circumstances should the free flow of objective information be stanched from its most pure source, the front line boots on the ground military personnel in Iraq.

If OPSEC insists on this course of action to make nice with the cowards on the Left, cheered by the thugs at the U.N, I would demand  that embedded counter-tribalists masquerading as "Journalists", along with their milquetoast PAOs, be promptly booted from their tax payer funded APCs, stripped of their monopoly on information from the front, and be made to walk back to civilization barefooted.

And naked.

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Michelle seems to be the clearing house.

Comments

[mRed]

Amen sister. Amen.

If I had a Hillary multi-lingual capability, I would slip into it right now and rock the rafters. Maybe later after a scotch or two.

I constantly search for first person accounting of the work our troops are doing Iraq. With the MSM one only gets Alice through the looking glass.

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[JANE SAYS: Yeah...and the Dems are drinking the Cheshire's bong water.]

[Rancher]

I find this disturbing at a time when ME tyrants are also clamping down on bloggers. What do you think of senior republican Senator Pete Domenici saying that things had better be improved in Iraq by September or a timetable would be imposed?

[JANE SAYS: Then Peter better find Bushie some balls. And quickly.]

[Entelechy]

Hi Jane. I made it to your site. I can't believe you haven't answered dejah (who's handle w/b more appropriate as deja vu) yet.

[JANE SAYS: Jane does not answer HATE. She flushes it. Hers makes only the fourth comment I have ever canned. GLAD TO SEE YOU HERE!!! DON'T Lurk! Jump right in!]

[Bradky]

Jane,

Two items regards this discussion. First is the text of an email circulating from security managers at several bases. Second is a link regarding the bandwidth concerns I mentioned.

I'm not against the blogging but the right balance in terms of how quickly the blogs are being posted needs to be looked at. As you will note, people did die due to a careless officer's mistakes. The balance is simply how many days is acceptable to let a soldiers thoughts make it onto the internet without inadvertently impacting their safety.

(1)
THIS IS THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY OPSEC IS SO IMPORTANT!

Here is an example of MySpace directly affecting our troops...

An Army LT who was an MP had a MySpace account. He used it as a diary of
his days in Iraq. He had photos of himself in his uniform in most of the
places within a tent city. He talked about USA tactics and how they were
changing due to the Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) threat. He documented his
day, down to the hour: Where he was at what time, what times the chow hall
was open for lunch and when it was crowded, when his sleeping schedules
changes because of patrols, etc. One day the tent city was attacked by ACMs
with mortars, no one was harmed. That night, the Army LT went on his MySpace
account and documented the incident. He said where the ACMs positioned the
launcher in regards to the base perimeter, what rounds they used, how
many, and best of all (if you are an ACM reading American MySpace
accounts), the LT stated "if those b@#%ards had placed the launcher
slightly farther away on higher ground it would have been a f$%&ing
direct hit". Two days later three ACMs launched another attack. This
time they didn't miss...CPL Juan Juarez, PFC Benjamin Hillman, and PFC
William Santoros were killed.

Please know that you do directly effect lives with your MySpace
accounts...don't give the enemy anything, sanitize your website like you
would sanitize your uniform.

Oh yeah, 1st LT John Phillip Arno was released from duty on 17 July 2006
due to "Conduct Unbecoming an Officer" and "Unauthorized Disclosure".

(2)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051400112.html