Iraq Troop Blogs: Intense, Real, Unstoppable

Back before I was born there was this war in Vietnam. On TV back then, news outlets showed the American public what was happening there. It was awful and horrible, and changed the conscience of a nation by showing the human truths of war. Since then, it’s been to the advantage of people who control that information, that all of that humanity and reality stays hidden. News outlets are now little more than one-dimensional, neutered puppets, with rare moments of transparency.
But now there are blogs. Snip:

(…) 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.
At the very least they risk administrative punishments, called Article 15s, though if it has happened it has been kept quiet.
“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.
The campaign has led some soldiers to steer clear of the Internet. Others do it anyway as confusion reigns because of conflicting signals sent from Washington, he said.
“President Eisenhower warned of the growing military industrial complex in his farewell address. Since Dick Cheney can now afford solid gold oil derricks, it’s safe to say we failed Ike miserably. After losing two friends and over a dozen comrades, I have this to say: Do not wage war unless it is absolutely, positively the last ditch effort for survival,” wrote Spc. Alex Horton, 22, of the 3rd Stryker Brigade in Army of Dude. “In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic,” he blogged.

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