This will cut out communication home and some of the best information about how well the war is going in Iraq. Instead, Americans will have to rely on the neo-Copperheads in the MSM for information.

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.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."

This regulation needs to be withdrawn immediately – and by the Commander-in-Chief personally. After all, the "new media" of blogging is really the only way that the truth about Iraq has been disseminated to the American public, since the "news" media has taken an ideological slant against good news -- just like in Vietnam.

UPDATE: Great WaPo article about milblogs and milbloggers today.

Today, many of the stories coming from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being written by those fighting them, in the form of thousands of soldiers' military blogs, or "milblogs." Their tales are unfolding as they occur, with limited censorship from the military, and they are attracting a growing readership from inside and outside the military.

Ward Carroll, the editor of military.com, an online military and veteran membership organization, said some of the best milbloggers have the ability to shape opinions on the war.

"If you are going to be informed, especially with something so controversial and polarizing as the Iraq war, you need to read one of these blogs along with The Washington Post and the New York Times," Carroll said.

Gee, where did I hear that point before?

Hugh Hewitt also has a great column on the subject.

Posted by: Greg at 10:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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