I posted this in another thread, but I wanted to repost it here so it will not get lost. Main point: keep up the great work that all of you milbloggers do. Your message is getting out to the American public and we are all grateful for your hard work and insight.

*****

Greyhawk - You are reaching a lot more than just military people with your blog as well as with the new Milblogs site. I have been following milblogs since I discovered Blackfive a year or so ago and then came upon SMASH's site and Mudville Gazette after that (not to mention Michael Yon, Michael Totten and many other embedded journalists that have been highlighted by milblogs). I'm not in the military, but I am a big supporter of the war effort and the military in general. I also have introduced my co-workers to milblogs and send them articles from your sites every day. We all are big supporters of the war effort and share a disgust of the media coverage of all things related to the war effort. As the months have gone by and I have been more open to discuss politics and the war with my coworkers, I have found that there are a lot more people than I realized who were supporters of the war effort. I have added more and more people to my distribution lists and have noticed that they are all forwarding on my e-mails to their family and friends as well. So the network is growing and milblogs are reaching a greater audience each day.

Also, in the past year, I have started my own blog, granted, only on MySpace for now until I figure out a good name for my own personal blog site, and have introduced many of my friends to milblogs and post numerous articles in bulletin posts as well as blog posts for all to see. I have gotten a great response from people who have told me they have been frustrated with the media coverage and have been looking for other sources of news to find out about all the progress they hear about from their family or friends serving overseas. I have gotten many a "thank you" from people for telling them about milblogs and passing on good stories of progress and success. Many have told me that they now visit the milblogs every day to get the latest updates.

The point of my post is to let you and all other milbloggers know that you are reaching a far greater audience than just other military members. Your posts and insight, as well as those of all the other milbloggers, have been a breath of fresh air for those of us who completely support the war effort and the military and have been wanting to gain more insight into the military and hear from those who have been there and are military experts. And I am only one person. I can imagine there are many, many more people such as myself who have also introduced their families, friends and coworkers to the work of milblogs and your message is getting out to a very large audience, and not just those in the military.

So keep up the great work that you and your fellow milbloggers do. You are an invaluable service to the American public.

Michael, do your knees hurt?

Did you guys know that Murtha is "strongly pro-military"?

Come on, Michael, why don't you go all the way and do what the wingnuts did and piss on Murtha's two Purple Hearts and his Bronze Star?

http://w3t.org/u/rdk

Readers here can think for themselves, but I gave this advice for responding to that attack on Murtha by a fellow Democrat.

Another twisted, disingenuous response from the doyen of the so-called "milblogosphere," which is actually little but a far-right-wing propaganda 'n disinformation operation.

Murtha's military record has been attacked over the years by this or that opponent. As soon as he spoke against the Iraq War, the Republican attack machine sprang into action and launched another smear job.

It's what you people do. It's all you know.

I see that three inmates have killed themselves at Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure the so-called "milblogosphere" will cheer this development, given that they condone torture and murder either directly or through the thinnest of veils.

I think that, by making torture S.O.P. for the U.S. military, the Bush administration has given into the terrorists. It has decided to let them dictate their values to us. Two hundred years after declaring the rights of individuals, the U.S. government kidnaps people, often at random, and takes them to various prisons where they are so severely tortured that death is their only solace.

Congratulations. Oh what a country.

http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqtortures.html#TORTURES

Of course, one way to justify torture is to simply define it out of existence.

http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/us/doc/doj.pdf

Damn, WW is on to us, I guess he's discovered that secret torture school in the Arizona desert. You know, the one where we teach young Soldiers how to yank out fingernails and beat the political prisoners with rubber hoses. We had to scale back waterboarding due to continuing drought conditions.

Murtha's military record has been attacked over the years by this or that opponent. As soon as he spoke against the Iraq War, the Republican attack machine sprang into action and launched another smear job.

For the record, here's what I said in the link above:

Let me be clear: attacks on Murtha's Vietnam record are pointless. Murtha's latest statements against the success of US troops in Iraq speak for themselves; his current behavior renders his past insignificant. Democrats, grown tired of waiting for an attack on Murtha's war record from the Right, have created their own. He's painted as a victim now - of "right wing chickenhawk" contempt for real war heroes. But those serious about standing up to the current John Murtha would be well advised to let his fellow Democrats and the mainstream media keep this war "unilateral".

Good luck.

If you can find any milbloggers (or even any major "right wing" political blogs) who jumped on the WaPo's coverage, please link them here.

Greyhawk your software limits the number of links in a single post so there may well be multiple posts from me on this. The Conservative News Service slimed Murtha's war record thusly:

http://w3t.org/u/re3

Damn, WW is on to us, I guess he's discovered that secret torture school in the Arizona desert. You know, the one where we teach young Soldiers how to yank out fingernails and beat the political prisoners with rubber hoses. We had to scale back waterboarding due to continuing drought conditions.

The secret torture school was the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, located in Ft. Benning, GA. Not sure about the fingernails 'n rubber hoses, but the link I posted has plenty of example of torture committed by U.S. troops that I'm sure you'd approve of.

Willy,

Don't bother with the links to your fiction laden website. We don't plan to give you the traffic.

We also think you have shown yourself to be pretty much an ignorant liar, so don't count on any credibility co-existing with your posts. (I'm leaving out rude and shrill because even morons have the right to be rude and shrill --- and you fit the description).

Of course none of the torture you claim was taught at the Ft Benning school was ever carried out by US soldiers, but by the soldiers from Latin American countries who were taught there. And they didn't need the School of the Americas to give them new ideas. They were already well versed in torture techniques before they ever showed up to the school.

And besides the only folks we approve of torturing is YOU because you are such a pissant here. We'll just have to hold our noses and adjust our earplugs, I guess.

Have fun under your rock, Willy. It is probably the only friend you'll find over the next several months.

Subsunk

So subby wants me tortured. Okay, I understand. But tell me, what did you do under the water all those years other than drink from your secret vodka stash, fail to brush your teeth and learn the 46 ways a man can scratch his balls? I've written that I don't begrudge anyone their military pay, but I am having second thoughts.

"So subby wants me tortured. Okay, I understand. But tell me, what did you do under the water all those years other than drink from your secret vodka stash, fail to brush your teeth and learn the 46 ways a man can scratch his balls? I've written that I don't begrudge anyone their military pay, but I am having second thoughts."

Posted by WW at June 11, 2006 11:24 PM

As a matter of fact, Willy, I want you tortured in the exact way you are torturing us, and that I put up with for 20 years underway. Sleep deprivation (20 waking hours every day for 75 days straight and only four hours sleep), stress positions (standing up for over 10 hrs solid a day 5 days a week), humiliating and degrading treatment (being stuffed in a 12 by 4 box with 10 other people for over 6 hrs a day, frequently without air conditioning or lights, loud noises (alarms) played frequently to keep us awake and alert, hostile environments (living with 157 other guys who hated my guts because I was the boss and they couldn't be home with mama in their own beds), insufficient personal time (a trip to the head between meals before grabbing a sandwich because the drills I ran cut off the electricity to the ovens, so no hot food was available), and in some cases the certain knowledge that truly hostile personnel were outside the ship listening for us and waiting to launch real weapons against us should they ever find us.

And finally, listening to some fat lazy slob who wouldn't recognize real sacrifice and sweat if it bit him in the ass, whine, squeal, and complain endlessly about how no one listens to him and he has to repeat the same stupid story over, and over, and over again, because he thinks he's hot snot, but he's really cold boogers.

Abu Ghraib was a picnic compared to that. And my Marine Corps gets handed much worse conditions than I ever had EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. They sleep in a hole on the ground -- I had a foam mattress. They deal with heat of 120 degrees in Iraq every day. I had 120 degrees for 4 hrs daily. They eat MREs, I had real sandwiches. I had a semi private stateroom. They sleep with 20 other guys in their clothes without showers.

Torture for terrorists? Terrorists are pussies! [Sorry, Mrs. G] My Men get worse treatment than those jerks every day. And they do their jobs without real complaint. What is your excuse, nimrod? Is the candy store too far to drive? Are the bar hours unsatisfactory for you? Does your banker pay too low an interest rate? Does your mistress cost you too much?

Go home to your fat ass nursery room and go to sleep or count your money while Real Men do their Real Jobs. And it's more than a small amount more dangerous than Alaskan fisherman, twit.

Subsunk
By the way there are over 460 ways to scratch your balls. But who's counting? Just you!

You're such whiners. No wonder you spent 20 years in a submarine. It was either that or a drunk tank in East Dogshit, Nebraska.

Actually, I am kind of fond of that drunk tank in East DogS***. Nebraska is full of such nice people. And they all treat me so much better than you do!

Subsunk