Monday, June 13, 2005
Retreat from the MilBlog high-water mark
John at Argghhh!!! has a link to the MNC-I (Iraq) Policy 39 – Unit and Soldier Owned and Maintained Websites MEMORANDUM outlining the how-what-where of posting for military personnel in Iraq. John judges it as about as fair as can be expected and I won’t argue that point with him.
What I think needs to be considered is that we should judge the day before this MEMO, 05 APR 05, as the high-water mark of deployed MilBlogs.
As stated here before, having your Chain of Command have complete knowledge and access to your webpage/blog and/or postings on other internet based publishing media will put a damper on primary source reporting, opinion, and information flow we are used to in the quick, honest, unvarnished manner we have become accustomed.
I am a very small fish in the MilBlog pond (or flappy bird, or adorable rodent – take your pick) but even as an anonoblogger let me tell you what this means to me: If/when I go to the MNC-I AOR, CDR Salamander will go cold iron. That is the only way I can keep CDR Salamander anon and brash as it is and not violate a lawful order. No other option.
On a macro scale, simple Freakonomics
will tell you that this burden will result in fewer blogs and diluted content.
I accept the MEMO, don’t have a choice really, but the slack will have to be picked up by the folks not on Active Duty to get the real time stuff out. Speaking for myself, I will continue to follow the MEMO 100 percent. Sigh. Waiting for the Afghanistan version next. Then the CFFC version. Hat tip The Corner.
|
What I think needs to be considered is that we should judge the day before this MEMO, 05 APR 05, as the high-water mark of deployed MilBlogs.
As stated
I am a very small fish in the MilBlog pond (or flappy bird, or adorable rodent – take your pick) but even as an anonoblogger let me tell you what this means to me: If/when I go to the MNC-I AOR, CDR Salamander will go cold iron. That is the only way I can keep CDR Salamander anon and brash as it is and not violate a lawful order. No other option.
On a macro scale, simple
I accept the MEMO, don’t have a choice really, but the slack will have to be picked up by the folks not on Active Duty to get the real time stuff out. Speaking for myself, I will continue to follow the MEMO 100 percent. Sigh. Waiting for the Afghanistan version next. Then the
…from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic…






