>>Mine has been to debunk flawed media reports on Iraq, tell the stories of the everyday heroes in Iraq, point out the things you never read in the papers or see on TV - coalition victories, progress, etc.>>

And I, for one, am very grateful for your efforts. It's almost unreal to read the headers from the milblogs you feature and then see the headers from the MSM that you report below the blogs - makes me almost wonder if we're talking about the same conflict!
Thank you...

Just a thought on the chilling effects of the Army rules... what's stopping an soldier from emailing a civilian blogger or reporter and being an anonymous source in order to "get out the truth"? Is the military able to subpoena the press to discover anonymous sources?

Personally, I think this "chilling effect" canard is a bit overblown. My whole command knows about my blog, but I never registered it or even told the Army about it. They just were fans, and word eventually got around that it was my work they were reading.

There's no "prior restraint" (to borrow a SCOTUS term) as far as I can tell with milblogs. There's only the possibility of getting your balls squashed by the brass if you step on your crank and blog about things you shouldn't be blogging about. (I.e., troop movements, operational details, posting obscene photos, any information that could aid the enemy, etc.) Most of the bloggers I've heard of who got in trouble were basically airing their company's dirty laundry in public. "Our sergeant major is a toolbag, our CO is a clown..." and so on. What employee anywhere isn't going to face some consequences for tearing down their bosses?

The problem then becomes do soldiers lose their credibility because they're not free to trash talk to their heart's content about their leadership? I don't think so. I don't think you would automatically have to discount the accounts of a Private Joe Snuffy blogging from the aftermath of WWII during the long occupation of Germany simply because he didn't think Truman was a jerk. (Oh, if only such a thing had been possible back then).

So, I hear ya Greyhawk. While you may be right that the Colby Buzzell anti-establishment types may be more drawn to the rogue excitement of an anonymous blog (random example, I'm no expert on his work), I don't feel that there is nearly the Uncle Sam oversight that some seem to believe exists. It might be tempting to test this hypothesis. Perhaps on my next blog entry I'll type in huge bold letters: "THIS WAR IS BULL****!!!", accompanied with a close-up shot of my 'fourth point of contact' and then sit back and wait for the sirens to go off and the black helicopters to descend upon me.

Maybe on my last week here.

Buck Sargent
4-23 Stryker Infantry
Mosul, Iraq

It's already begun. It's discouraged a lot of folks who are "by the rules" types, the kinds of guys who the Army would most like to have telling the story from Iraq. Some are concerned of inadvertent OPSEC violations, others of being accused of violating OPSEC by an overzealous senior. But the maladjusted, anti-social types who really hate the Army aren't going to play by those rules, so in the end my concern is you'll see fewer milblogs from squared away, professional military types and more from the bitter extremists.

I'm a civilian, so to my knowledge the registration thing doesn't cover me, but growing concerns over the possibility of OPSEC violations have caused me to go virtually silent on the subject of what goes on over here in Iraq.

That's also had a negative impact on my readership, but there isn't a lot that can be done when my higher priority is to ensure that I don't say something that might inadvertantly lead to someone's death.

All interesting-- Seems to me that what offended Buzzell's superiors most was his contradicting of the official press statements which stated that the Iraqi forces did all the fighting, etc. Viewed in that narrow spectrum, are there more soldiers and Marines who feel it is necessary to clarify the official statements? Is this done indirectly? And again, do some would-be bloggers just confide in a reporters to tell the story?

Jon
Actually, Colby Buzzell's superiors weren't offended by his blog. They wanted him to continue, but wanted to review what he wrote for potential OPSEC violations - a forerunner to the official policy now in place. Colby chose to shut the blog down and remove all his posts.

And thus was born the myth that he was a rebellious, anti-Army blogger who was shut down by the brass - and it's not true. And from that basis grows many theories like the one you relate. But in summer 2004 - when his blog was available and widely read - the new Iraqi Army was embryonic at best, and no one was claiming they were doing all the fighting, or even "in the lead".

But there's the rub - all his posts are gone now, so a form of urban legend has developed, one that portrays the army in a much more negative light than CB ever did. That's an unintended consequence of the series of events.

In fact, milbloggers like Colby are exactly what the Army needs - he's a lot closer to the "squared away" type I was referring to than he is to the Jeff Engleharts of the world. Take a look at the original comments from his Men in Black post (the one that ultimately brought him much grief) and you'll gat a feel for what a fantastic bit of unofficial PR it really was.

The irony is that as with the official policy, all involved had good intentions. But there's an enduring lesson from this whole Iraq war thing - good intentions don't always bring desired results.

Buck
Greyhawk's advice to all milbloggers:

A military blogger must write with the understanding that his mother, his commander, and his enemy are all potential readers of his blog.

Many would be milbloggers aren't up to the task. You obviously are, but most often it's the second person in my list who some bloggers fear. Believe me, I've seen a lot of great milbloggers click that onoff to the off position for just that reason.

Take a look at this post and this post from Porphyrogenitus - they were the last he ever did. Then there's this one from Phil Carter.

This is what I had in mind: See the brigade press release from the Mosul battle Buzzell described in the Men In Black post ("Iraqi security forces repelled all of the attacks... Multinational forces served in a supporting role..."). It's clear that CNN's story pretty much is the same as the press release. I would imagine Buzzell didn't think it fair for his unit's brave fighting to be whitewashed out. And in his book he adds the detail that after the June 24th battle, a Lt. Col. came by to tell some soldiers what to tell the media about what happened.

I understand that Buzzell's posts were well loved, even within the Army. And I agree they don't portray the Army in a bad light. So I was wondering then what the real reason was for their being pulled. It seems that if he was undermining the official account of how the battle happened, the Army wouldn't want that.

Sorry if this is old ground I'm treading over here, but I do want to understand the dynamics here-- and also understand what a soldier or marine ought to do when they think that the the "official" account released to the press is wrong. And the Buzzell lesson seems to me that a blog is not a safe harbor for posting that.

Thanks,

I copy that Jon. And regardless of who had the larger role in that day's fighting, there's no denying that Mosul deteriorated, and what CB was describing were the early days of a long bloody battle. Mike Yon's accounts of the Deuce-Four - part of the team that followed CB's in Mosul- make that very clear.

By December of 2004 a military dining facility in Mosul was infiltrated by a suicide bomber. That event was "covered" by at least five milbloggers on the scene. (I was elsewhere in Iraq at the time.) That may be the "highwater mark" of milblogging.

There are many fine military bloggers writing from Iraq today, but not in the numbers there were a year ago, and certainly not in the numbers that would be if the Army had allowed unchecked growth.

This has theoretically reduced the potential for an inadvertant security breach - at an imeasurable cost in opportunity to strengthen public support for the overall effort.