In Vietnam, soldiers partook in the holy herb of the era as much as the hippies back in the States. So what is the drug of “choice” among Iraq Vets?
[poll id="3"]
Here’s a hint.
One that does what it should
One that wont make me feel too bad
One that wont make me feel too good
I never understood why the military would be so concerned with limiting what soldiers can access on the Internet. This is what led to the crackdown on military web used called “Web 2.0″:
This winter, the Air Force, as the Pentagon’s point agency for “cyberwarfare,” banned access from official networks to many blogs, declaring that they weren’t “established, reputable media.” The Air Force didn’t seem concerned that international jihadists had long ago latched onto websites as cheap, effective tools for sharing ideas. Indeed, the Air Force’s ban was part of a widening military crackdown on the so-called “Web 2.0.” Mostly, Website-banning Pentagon officials were worried that U.S. troops might inadvertently release secret information on the Internet.
The flip side of this is that the military can also prevent Americans from finding out things about the war. Sgt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp became the target for many pro-war pundits for his accounts in The New Republic, when they were thought to have painted too grim a picture of the daily life of soldiers, thus demonstrating how naive people like Malkin really are — Beauchamp’s stories were tame compared to many I’ve heard.
However, a case can be made to limit what information people outside the military can get. What soldiers post on their blogs might give away, hower inadvertantly, information that could be used by insurgents and the like. We aren’t fighting a Superpower, where keeping our military budget secret made sense - what can an Afghani sitting in a cave do with that? So the old excuses for government secrecy and lack of accountability do not hold up as well as they did when we were facing down another SuperPower. What you don’t want is for terrorists to figure out troop movements, scope out targets, or study tactics.
Yet, by limiting access, you also limit the ability to share information, which has been hampering the military, who has fallen far behind terrorist groups who have become quite Internet savvy.
In a three part series in the Washington Independent by David Axe, we learn that the Army’s solution is a MySpace that has people sign up and limit who gets access to their posts:
The military MySpace – call it “MilSpace” – would eventually include the previously mentioned blogging function, allowing officers to develop and share ideas and tactics without necessarily having to work through the military’s lumbering, labyrinthine and strictly hierarchical chain of command. MilSpace and its blogs are part of a network of online discussion forums, created by the Center for Company-Level Leaders, that Lt. Col. Tony Burgess, Kimball’s boss, called a “virtual front porch” for hosting soldiers’ conversations.
The forums have their roots in the late 1990s, when they were a private project overseen by several young officers. In 2002 the Army officially sanctioned the forums. After months of work, the MilSpace addition went live in January this year, and the blogging function launched in late April. With each successive new feature, this “virtual front porch” has gained new users, new admirers in the senior ranks and a more prominent position in the Army’s emerging Internet strategy. “I would definitely characterize it [the Mil-Space blogs] as a success,” Kimball told The Washington Independent. “Anecdotally, conversations are more vibrant than they’ve ever been.”
Lest you take too much heart, Part II, shows that where the army has taken steps forward, the Coast Guard and Navy have shown us how not to utilize the web:
The Coast Guard problem is one that a senior official described when addressing alleged inaccuracies in online news reports about the service’s over-budget shipbuilding program. “We are encountering an interesting phenomenon in the ‘blogosphere,’” Rear Adm. Gary Blore said in a Mar. 11 news conference. “A blog can be anything you want it to be,”
The next day, events unfolded that resulted in the Coast Guard publishing a faked first-hand account of an at-sea rescue on its official “Coast Guard Journal” blog.
That particular blog had been a centerpiece of a new Internet campaign by the nation’s fifth military service. In fact, Capt. Jim McPherson, the Coast Guard’s top public affairs officer, cited this blog in February, asserting his service was ahead of the pack when it came to the military services embracing the Internet.
So, factual accounts are shut down, fictional accounts promoted, while terrorist groups have been exploiting the freedom of the Internet at every opportunity. One day, our government may simply have to accept, as China is finding out, that there is no Green Zone in cyberspace.
They made a big deal out of Barrack Obama not wearing a tie like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . Yet, were you aware of the Bill Clinton/Ayatollah Khamenei connection? Look very carefully at what book the Supreme Leader of Iran is purchasing in this picture:
That would be a copy of Bill Clinton’s auotobiography, My Life. Is this the closest thing to pornography in Iran an oblique passing reference to Monical Lewinski?