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Are Marines Censoring Web Access for Troops in Iraq?
Gavin86 and others have submitted links to This Wonkette article (profanity warning) about the Marines Corps blocking access to some Web sites for their people in Iraq. This article was a follow-up to an earlier Wonkette post. Before I posted these links, I looked for verification of this problem but found nothing but links to Wonkette, so I cannot say for sure whether this is true. Hopefully, alert Slashdot readers (like you) will post confirmations if, indeed, there are any to be found. Meanwhile, if this is true, it's eerily reminiscent of an experience I had when I visited Saudi Arabia in January, 2004.
The Wonkette post contains this list of sites blocked and not blocked, allegedly sent by a Marine serving in Iraq:
I spent several hours in my Riyadh hotel room one evening checking sites suggested to me by Slashdot coworker Jamie McCarthy via IRC (which was not blocked by the Saudi filters). Among them were sites decrying Holocaust denial, which were blocked, although many sites espousing the old Protocols of the Elders of Zion antisemitic lies were not.
A number of sites that talked about human rights -- especially women's rights -- were also blocked. Sites that glorified Islam were, of course, fine. Interestingly, Jamie and I found that some (but not all) sites that were blocked when the 2002 Harvard Law School article, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia, was released had been unblocked by the time of my visit.
And when I met with Eyas S. Al-Hejery, the man in charge of Saudi Arabia's Internet Serice Unit and told him about some of the blocked sites Jamie and I had found, including several innocuous Israeli government ones, he agreeably unblocked them.
I have no way of knowing whether Eyas reblocked those sites as soon as I left his country, but he told me more than once that he did not, himself, decide which sites should be blocked but only reacted to complaints from Saudi Arabia's infamous religious police and submissions from concerned citizens, which he said numbered up to 200 per day, total, while he only received a "trickle" of requests to unblock sites.
Now comes a big question: If the charges of Marine Internet blockage are true, will the Marines unblock incorrectly-blocked Web sites as quickly as Eyas did in Saudi Arabia?
But first, another big questions must be answered: Is the Wonkette story true? It's been up and spreading around the Internet since March 1st, and no official Marine spokesperson has bothered to either debunk it or admit that yes, the Marine Corps is blocking Web sites for political reasons.
It's going to be interesting to see if, here in a country where we supposedly hold freedom of speech dear, we expect our overseas troops to submit to the same sort of censorship that is an everyday thing in Saudi Arabia, a famous breeding ground for the Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism our Marines are supposed to be fighting against.
- Wonkette - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion."
- Bill O'Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) - OK
- Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
- Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK
- ABC News "The Note" - OK
- Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
- G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) - OK
- Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/) is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies."
I spent several hours in my Riyadh hotel room one evening checking sites suggested to me by Slashdot coworker Jamie McCarthy via IRC (which was not blocked by the Saudi filters). Among them were sites decrying Holocaust denial, which were blocked, although many sites espousing the old Protocols of the Elders of Zion antisemitic lies were not.
A number of sites that talked about human rights -- especially women's rights -- were also blocked. Sites that glorified Islam were, of course, fine. Interestingly, Jamie and I found that some (but not all) sites that were blocked when the 2002 Harvard Law School article, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia, was released had been unblocked by the time of my visit.
And when I met with Eyas S. Al-Hejery, the man in charge of Saudi Arabia's Internet Serice Unit and told him about some of the blocked sites Jamie and I had found, including several innocuous Israeli government ones, he agreeably unblocked them.
I have no way of knowing whether Eyas reblocked those sites as soon as I left his country, but he told me more than once that he did not, himself, decide which sites should be blocked but only reacted to complaints from Saudi Arabia's infamous religious police and submissions from concerned citizens, which he said numbered up to 200 per day, total, while he only received a "trickle" of requests to unblock sites.
Now comes a big question: If the charges of Marine Internet blockage are true, will the Marines unblock incorrectly-blocked Web sites as quickly as Eyas did in Saudi Arabia?
But first, another big questions must be answered: Is the Wonkette story true? It's been up and spreading around the Internet since March 1st, and no official Marine spokesperson has bothered to either debunk it or admit that yes, the Marine Corps is blocking Web sites for political reasons.
It's going to be interesting to see if, here in a country where we supposedly hold freedom of speech dear, we expect our overseas troops to submit to the same sort of censorship that is an everyday thing in Saudi Arabia, a famous breeding ground for the Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism our Marines are supposed to be fighting against.
Interesting. I have no idea if her claim is true or not, but it is at least consistent with another oddity that I noticed a few weeks ago, when the poll results showed that a majority (IIRC) of the US service personnel over there thought that we were in Iraq "because of what they did to us on 9/11," despite the fact that pretty much everyone over here (apart from a few trolls) now knows there was no connection at all between Iraq and 9/11.
When I heard that my first thought was: how could they not know this?!?
But perhaps there is a simple explanation after all.
--MarkusQ
I know everyone is looking for some vast right-wing conspiricy, but to me it looks like the blocked pages had free streaming radio, or public forums. I can see cases where administrators may block streaming media for the purposes of saving bandwidth, and potentially public forums for a huge number of security and public relations reasons.
It just so happens the Air America lets you listen online for free (becuase they are not trying to turn a profit), and Rush Limbaugh does not. I'm not so certain theres any bias going on here.
At the worst, it seems like a case of stupid network rules, which happen to be the same as at my company. (No streaming media, no forums).
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
isn't this the same thing that they bitch about China doing? If one of the basic tenants of our "democracy" (representitive republic) is "Freedom of Speech", how is it that the military blocks websites? And, in particular, websites of people with political opinions pertaining to getting the troops out of another failed war?
Research or knee jerk?
Wonkette is run by others.
Poor troll, nonetheless.
The same network that carries Command & Control data that is vital for operational information.
You guys keep lots of vital operational information on the O'Reilly Factor website, do you?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
um... we also weren't allowed to have any pork products etc sent to us by friends and relatives back home. When you join the military, you give up one or two comforts....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Although the military may indeed (as pointed out by others here) be blocking certain web sites or access, another major source of censorship may be who owns the Internet pipe the military is using.
In some cases, the deployed units are getting access directly via sat-links to US owned or operated internet pipes, but in others, they are relying on a host nation provider. In the case of an Islamic country, the ISP itself may be censoring a lot of sites and filtering a lot of traffic before it even gets to the military IT department serving a base.
So it may not be the fault of the military per'se, but rather the internet pipe they've tapped into.
What Service?
I'm surprised you got modded up without substantiating your statements with even 1 fact.
Unless 4 Mods know something about you that I don't?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
A brief Googling seems to indicate that they're using Secure Computing SmartFilter as the content filtering service.
The Secure Computing site lists "A United States Defense Agency" as one of its clients. Said agency also uses the Sidewinder product as a firewall.
Of course, this is all conjecture.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
So anyhow, I do a dig/nslookup on the IP and discover it is "n-mnstci-142.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil" - the edit is coming from United States Central Command's Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq. Thus, my tax dollars are going to some guy so he can rewrite history that I had written. And I had been so excited about Wikipedia because I thought, here is finally a medium of information that is not controlled by multi-national corporations, like say the channels on my television. Instead I have to contend with some modern-day version of a bureaucrat in the bowels of some Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
What really concerns me is that everything in our political discourse is being broken down along this liberal versus concervative spectrum. If you are an activist, your activism is immediately pigeon holed into liberalism or conservativsm. Take, for example, the war in Iraq. If you're for it, you're a conservative and if you're against it, you're a liberal. Really when you analyze the positions closely, one could readily argue that it's a conservative perspective to not rush into a war.
Howard Dean is another good example of this. He was labeled an angry radical lefty. But if you look at this positions on the issues, he was really a moderate. Hell most of the truly radical left was a bit nervous about Dean because he wasn't all that liberal. What got him labeled though was that he did things differently in how he organized.
Today if you look at where the energy is in the Democratic party, the biggest movement is the "fighting dems". These are Iraq and Afghan war vets who are now running for congress. If you look at these people, by and large, they aren't that left leaning, yet the community of blogs, etc are hugely supportive of them. You find those "radical left" sites backing Paul Hackett, over Sherrod Brown even though Hackett is clearly the more conservative candidate.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Too bad that very few of the posters here seem to be in a place to confirm or deny the report. (Which, I beleive was part of the posters request: Is the story true or not?)
There are a few who have responded with constructive comments to this:
- High Bandwith sites (Radio) are blocked.
- Porn is blocked
- This is how Internet access exists: YXZ
Too bad that many of the people here are knee jerking their wan(ers and saying *Conspiracy* or *Conspiracy of the Left-Wing Unpatriotic Types*
The fact is: If the personell there have time to check the Internet (aka: Down Time), they should not have biased access: The (unverified) story is that they do. Hopefully someone can actually provide a meaningful list of what's blocked - or not. And Hopefully, the list will not be biased by politics.
$.02 - now pay up
I pesonally would have supported the war if our government had done as yours, and said "we're doing this for reigeme change in Iraq"
The Bush administration has been criticized in the US, not unfairly, for also stressing the WMD concerns above the other reasons for going to war.
I personally don't feel the US Republicans nor the UK Labor leadership "lied" about WMDs. Worst-case, they were wrong, because they trusted the wrong intel and chose to err on the side of keeping WMD capacity out of Saddam's hands.
The recently uncovered Saddam tapes (while far from a smoking gun), do lend support to the idea that a crapload of weapons and related tech were squirreled away to Syria and/or buried in the desert during the ramp-up to the war. It would not at all surprise me if even harder evidence were to come to light in the near future. It certainly seems consistant with what we know about the previous Iraqi government to suspect that they had these weapons, but did a very good job of hiding them.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
We're fighting for freedom and democracy. You'll notice that you have none of those things in the military.
When did that change, then? When I was in the USAF I could go wherever I wanted, provided I was at my job the next day. Not much unlike my present civilian job. That's freedom.
There wasn't any internet, but no newspapers, TV or radio stations were forbidden to me.
Democracy? I voted. That IS what a democratic republic is about, isn't it?
Indeed, I wrote a not very kind letter to then President Nixon, and was rewarded for my efforts by a pleasant note from a General thanking me for my participation in our government. That sure felt like freedom to me.
Guess what? The bill of rights applied to us, too, even in Thailand, which was technically a war zone (200 miles from Viet Nam).
In short - I felt like I had more rights as an enlisted Airman in the USAF under Nixon than I do as a Civilian under Bush.
Boiled frog, anyone?
-mcgrew (sm62704)
"they still should enjoy the basic constitutional rights that all Americans have."
That is so naive I hardly know where to start.
If the Marine Corps determines that a particular site will lower troop morale, then I would hope that they'd block it. Failing that, they should cut off web access, cable news, or whatever it takes to keep the blinders on. A Marine who doubts is one who dies.
And I want the ones on the other side to die.
Someone in the military, especially in time of war, lives a different life, under a different set of rules. They have less liberty. They have to cut their hair. If they are late to work or tell the boss off, they can go to jail.
On the other hand, they can get in a fight with their coworker and the boss just asks who won and tells them not to waste time. Or he knocks their heads together and makes them run 10 miles holding hands. Or they get the book thrown at them.
The last thing a Marine needs is to be given civilian rights, and thus be judged by civilian standards. He has to think differently, so that when the time comes he won't hesitate to rip his bayonet through the throat of his enemy.
All so you can post on Slashdot.
sigs, as if you care.
If you look down the thread some you will see that bandwidh intensive audio streaming sites are being blocked.
The http://www.disa.mil/main/prodsol/data.html NIPRnet is being filtered. The Soldiers and Marines can go walk over to a government funded non-censored 'Internet Cafe' durring of hours and browse the net without restriction. Most Marines/Soldiers have limited access to the NIPRNet anyway, the cafes are put in place for email and browsing purposes.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Actually, there are more streaming sites among the non-blocked websites than the blocked ones. Try again. As for the non-censored Internet Cafe, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure nothing is blocked there. Uh-huh. That said, the NIPRNET does need to have bandwidth limited. But rather than blocking specific sites, how about you block that variety of file from being opened on those computers, hmmm? In fact, if you're worried about it, how about you disable windows media player? And lock down the desktops so people can't install other media players? Nice try, dude. I'm in the Air Force, and I know we have a bias against the left. The marines are way crazier than we are, so I'm sure they're experiencing a fair bit of bias too.
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
And yes, it is a crime. A very very serious one.
And why, when you're not on the front-line in a warzone, is that?
I remember hearing an interview with a medical officer from the British army who was serving in France in 1940. He was saying that at first he was all for throwing the book at people who tried to give themselves minor injuries to avoid combat and then he realised - if they're willing to injure themselves so as not to be here, WE DON'T WANT THEM HERE - someone who doesn't want to be there 1) drains resources, 2) won't be effective 3) will be far more likely to surrender without a fight 4) could well under up getting other people killed (as well as themselves, for which you're still going to have to pay a war widows pension)
If people want to leave, you'll do far better to let them then try and prevent them and seem like bullies in the court of public opinion, when you imprison them for a totally disproportionate ammount of time.
yeah, this doesn't hold water as all but one of those right wing sites streams audio if not video, and I know wonkette doesn't have any multimedia.
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
Real heros
Do americans understand the term, 'non-combatants', I wonder?
Heros don't do it the easy way, they do it the right way. And lets face it, US troops always take the easy route.
(btw, the above video is from an apache blowing away some guys who are hanging around a truck. Okay, their activities look suspicious, but jeez, blowing them away with a 30mm cannon??!! Hint for Americans, these guys were 'non-combatants', repeat after me...).
I checked out Rish Limbaugh's site, and it appears that he hosts his streaming media on a different server(stream.rushlimbaugh.com). It also takes being a subscriber(which I'm not) to get.
Being at work, air america's site is indeed, blocked. On the other hand, Al's site isn't blocked.
Can somebody with access to air america's site verify whether or not it has streaming media availabe from the same url?
I don't read AC A human right
Are you kidding me? Seriously?
Ok, I asked myself, and the answer was. . . I was there. I grew up in that situation. My Dad was a Military man, still is actually, 28yrs later. And I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to speak of. where meals many a times consisted of potatoes we grew in the garden, and only those potatoes at times. I grew up as "red neck" as it comes. Gravel road that in the winter took 3-4 days to get plowed out after a storm. Where it was nothing to walk the 5 miles to school, cause I had football practice. Where our only family vehicle was a Ford Festiva, and I had 3 brothers, all of us in highschool at the time, and we found a way to get us 4 in the back seat so we could drive the 40 min. to church on Sunday. Where our idea of a good time was swinging on a rope in the water hole out in the east field down by the railroad tracks in our underwear, because we didn't know they actually had clothes you was supposed to wear when swimin' cause 90% of the clothes we did wear was made by Mom for the first boy and handed down to the fourth, and patched along the way.
And guess what? I didn't join the military like my Daddy and my Brothers did. No, I saved up 150 bucks from corn detasseling the summer of my senior year, and bought a car. Well if you could call it that. And left town for the City. (Minneapolis) and I signed up for college at. . . . A PRIVATE ART COLLEGE, MCAD.
And how did I do that? with no money and all I owned in the back seat of my crappy Rustbucket of a Ford Tempo? It's called motivation. It's not. . .
It's called making my own opportunity, and busting my balls. It's called finding a job at the local Happy Chef working as many shifts as I can, and selling Blood Plasma 2 times a week for the entire time I was in college, and student loans to boot. Then graduating with a 4 year BFA Degree in Multimedia/3D Computer Animation.So don't spout that crap about opportunities to me. Make your own!
I hate these pour me I can't choose my parents, it's not my fault, I didn't have a choice people. You do have a choice, you just choose to not make it.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
Not taking either side in the Iraq/911 argument, but as a combat veteran myself I am always ashamed when any debate ends by invoking your argument.
"I was there, man!" Meaning....? Yes war is atrocious, yes you will never be the same again, and yes NOBODY but those who have been there can understand the rush of often conflicting emotions.
But that has little to do with the facts of the greater debate. Your personal experience does not give your emotions the power to override reality. You might be right or wrong, but not just for having "been there."
I guarantee that some servicemen and contractors (who handle a disproportionate amount of specops responbsibilities) have run into real legitimate terrorists. Are they an anomaly or the norm? Doesn't matter - in those people's perspectives that how it was.
I guarantee that coalition personal have raped tortured and murdered innocent Iraqis. They are certainly in the minority and deserve every bit of hell they have coming to them.
Neither side reflects the entire situation. Stories of "my six months in the Green Zone" or "the year in Tikrit" etc. give the speaker no greater understanding of the macro-war effort. It is simply their individual experience, not to be discounted but also not to be relied on to speak for everyone.
So what about when the anti-war progressive are Iraq war veterans, military families, supporters of the troops or former Green Berets Do you laugh at them too?
if one doesn't like the rules, one should not join.
I agree. Since joining the military requires abandoning ones conscience, no person can morally join the military.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think what you have in this case is the classic case of a real lack of oppertunity compared to a perception of a lack of oppertunity.
Look, it is very true that in some places, one of the only jobs available is to join the military. It is also very true that in some places, it only -seems- like one of the only jobs available is to join the military.
The military offers you, in my opinion, an "easy out." Not that it's easy, but it can give you a quick way out of your current situation. Hell, who wouldn't want money for college and a bit of pocket change?
Here's the problem: When you join the military, you are being trained to kill people. Sometimes they send you to kill people that need to be killed - bad guys like the Nazis. Sometimes they send you to kill people that don't need to be killed - they just happen to 'be in the way' at the moment. When you join the army you can't distinguish between a good war and a bad war.
When we elect a president, we place trust in the commander in chief to send troops in harms way only when necessary. And many people enlist hoping and praying that's the case. And it's not the case now.
At any rate, you don't have freedom and democracy in the Army. Fine. But you can't tell me that blocking all the left-leaning sites while all the right-leaning sites are up doesn't send a POWERFUL message to the troops that the government that sent them into harms way doesn't want them to know the truth.
That's gotta be more harmful to morale than Franken talking about how the troops are getting fucked over.
LOL this is stupid. I am in the Marine Corps. Our Internet access is censored even in the United States! You can't even get to Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, for example. I don't think there is any particular political bias in the censorship. It does make the Internet a hell of a lot less useful the way they have their proxy configured.
The funny thing is how much effort they put into censoring web access, when they let a shitload of spam and virus crap into their email servers, and use shitty Windows systems and Internet Explorer which get infected regularly with shitware.
When I was in Iraq, I used a civilian satellite ISP most of the time, which was so much better than the military network.
The military's IT (or at least the USMC's) is incompetent, hindered by leaders that don't understand IT, and probably underfunded and/or the funding is misguided.
> > We're fighting for freedom and democracy. You'll notice that you have none of those things in the military.
> Actually, I guess any military has neither of those.
Historical trivia: the New Model Army during the British "War of the Three Kingdoms" (the English Civil War and the related conflicts in Ireland and Scotland for those of us educated before or during the 1980s...) consisted of volunteer soldiers and elected "agitators" (officers) ... at least until the Commonwealth-under-Parliament became a Dictatorship-under-Cromwell.
Republican military units in Spain during the Civil War also were frequently democratic, at least until the anarchist and socialist militias were assimilated by the pro-Moscow faction.
This is where the serious fun begins.
"Actually, I guess any military has neither of those [freedom and democracy]"
Weren't the overseas military (postal) votes not counted in the last presidential election? So it's possibly worse than a "normal" army in terms of how much democracy you can participate in?
Of course, the most "democratic" army would be somewhere like the Congo, where if you get enough soldiers with similar political views, they have a coup, form a government and implement those ideas...
As I mentioned the last time you trolled me, I'm a conservative, not a liberal-hiding-behind-a-codeword. There are plenty of reasons a conservative ought to object to frittering away our military on a land war in Asia based on false statements and propaganda, and in the process running up enormous debts and treating the constitution like last week's junk mail. In fact, it amazes me that any conservative can get behind this sort of "we're going to fix the world 'cause the poor fools are too dumb to fix themselves" nonsense. It's a classic liberal sort of foolishness, and it's just as foolish coming from a so-called Republican like Bush as it is coming from a Democrat.
So are you on active duty, or are you just trying to make it sound that way?
--MarkusQ
Nobody gets a copy of the UCMJ, dumbshit. You get a half hour introduction to the UCMJ, but only AFTER you are commited to serving 8 years.
Plus, the UCMJ is nuts. Did you know it is illegal for a member of the armed forces to get a blowjob? AND THAT THEY ENFORCE THE RULE. There are people in federal prison right now for recieving oral sex.
So this is the freedom you want to spread?
"Shut the fuck up, cause I don't agree"?
That kindof attitude just makes my stoumach turn.
You can disagree with the politics around here, I don't fully back up what the politicians do overhere either. (hence my earlier comment)
But it doesn't take away I have the right to voice my discontent with what I find over the line. You voiced your oppinion, and label or preceive Belgium as "inconsequential". Your right as a free citizen. So how do I have not the right to do the same? Ohh.. not American? fuck you.
I also highly doubt you are aware of Belgian politics other then some headline once in a while, and do not understand the motivation behind that or other laws overhere as you seem to be refering to the law overhere where you can file a warcrime lawsuit regardless of location of the events.
Then take note that this law dates from the 90s and has been reviewed.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Odd, does Websense give the Marines some special set of sites to block? In our Websense build, blocking sites like Al Franken would block sites like Rush Limbaugh. Odd that the Websense filter for the Marines seems to be missing something, if the report is correct.
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
During second world war, if i remember correctly, a drunk was jailed for 3 years for shouting publicly that Winston Churchill is an idiot and a warmonger.
...and Britain's "last witch" was tried for contacting the spirit of a dead sailor: the sailor's family (and the general population) didn't know his ship had sunk until the clairvoyant was arrested and charged under a 1735 law...
This is where the serious fun begins.
Gosh, I don't believe that someone will actually read this after all that has been said in this thread. But since I have the feeling that the essence is missing in all the (mostly valid) criticism of parent and since I've got rather strong feelings about this I feel the urge to add to the picture:
It's true that most armies don't embrace the concept of democracy or freedom (and there is no doubt that this wouldn't work in the long run). But there's a diference in having obeying troops and people who depend on their government to make a living. If you haven't guessed already, I'm criticising "professional armies" like the one the US currently maintains. Compared to a "draft" the majority of such armies usually consists of people of lower income. People who see some kind of perspective in joining the army. Furthermore it's a sad truth that such people usually haven't enjoyed a high level of education in gerneral, which makes it more likely that they won't question immoral orders. I'm not saying that poor people are dumb, but I think it's more likely that an army consisting of people who rely on the army for carreer plans are more likely to follow illogical orders or make up their own (Lynndie England anyone?).
Afterall there's a reason why the US did get rid of a general draft after 73 and there's also a reason why they try not to expose coffins to the media today. In respect to other decisions the ultimate goal is to keep the general public out of warfare, because that's what made the Vietnam war fail in the end. Since the cold war is over for quite some time I believe that it might be time for compulsory military service again, because it's just ugly to seperate remote wars and general society that much with an added flavor of patriotism. Disclaimer: Before anyone thinks I'm criticising any particular war - I just believe that there's a lack of balance in the US governments decisions to go to war in the last 2 decades.
I don't read replies by ACs.
Sorry, that doesn't wash. He told the inspectors he had no WMD. To any rational person it appears that this was correct. The inspectors certainly didn't think he had any. As they stated at the time, hauling things out in convoys, repainting, etc. would not have been enough to hide a weapons program if he had had one. So the whole interpretation of the convoys is as "jerking us around" is based on the assumption that he did have WMD but managed to outfox everyone, which is an unreasonable assumption.
Look at it this way: Suppose I'm sunbathing in the buff (as if) and the neighbor kid calls over the wall that he wants to look for his ball in my yard. I say, "well, it's not here, but you're welcome to come look, as soon as I put a robe on" am I "jerking him around on the ball issue" because I put a robe on? Yes, if (and only if) I was hiding the ball in my robe. Otherwise, if his ball really isn't in my yard, and he leads an gang of his buddies over the wall to strip search me, he's just a paranoid nut job.
--MarkusQ
Funny, I seem to recall the same criticisms levelled at the Viet Nam era military when there was a draft. I'm no great lover of using the military for everything, nor do I have any illusions that they're recruiting most heavily in the 90210 zip code, but it has nothing to do with draft or no draft.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
First off, to clearly understand the situation there you have to know what the internet there is for. First and formost it is a non secure means of communication and access to programs that run for our administration and command personnel. Secondly it is a means for our Marines to contact their families by email and to do financial/educational buisness. Anything more that that is a bonus. I personally just got back from there and I just so happen to be one of the Sys/Net admins that maintained one of the larger networks out there. The basic idea behind most of the blocking is to provide the best service and the most bandwidth to the users on those networks. Bandwidth is meager at best and excess surfing just makes it harder for people at remote sites to communicate with the rear. There are blanket like policies set out for these things to protect access but if a user with a valid need for a specfic website to do finacial or educational buisness, it is passed to the admins that take care of that and through proper authorization are allowed to view that material. As far as I am concerned there is no freedom of access act any where that applies to a war zone. There are Marines out there that don't get to touch a computer for weeks months even. If when they do have a chance to settle down and send an email after waiting for the other Marines in his unit to get done he/she does not need to wory about some Tard going to his favorite WWW.Ihateevrythingthatisntfreespeach.com website and bringing down the network with a virus or somthing and not being able to tell his wife and kids that he loves them. At no time did I ever find that a person with a valid need was ever told no. Believe me as an admin out there you have so much pressure to provide the best service you can with what you have got. You have alot of people coming in from the states expecting to get broadband like access out there like they get at home. I am just giving my personnel 2 cents worth here
Specifically in the military case, if you question your orders, people die before they are cleared up for you. (Why should I fire artillery there? I'm not sure those are the bad guys...)
The term for this isn't "following orders", it's "dipshit stupidity". Most of the time when soldiers have problems following orders or reinterpreting commands it's for a damn good reason. People aren't goddamn mindless zombies. As shocking as it sounds, people ARE capable of thinking and acting as a group.
When the soldier follows the order to fire the artillery he isn't BLINDLY following orders, he knows from experience and training that he can rely on his spotters and commanders to accurately direct his fire. If they start fucking up, you better believe that he's going to start complaining within the limits of his ability to do so. This isn't about loyalty or safety, it's about fucking up.
The notion that soldiers, or really anyone, are mindless lazy fools that need to be told to follow orders absolutely is based on classic military thinking, which is based on classic notions of "superior breeding", "divine right", and other nonsense. I think better of American citizen soldiers, who, at least in theory, hold the fate of the nation in their hands. All American soldiers, not just officers, should be directed to follow their own best judgement and concience. Stunningly, you'll find that most American soldiers believe in what they're doing and don't blindly follow orders, but do so out of loyalty and integrity, often personal loyalty towards their comrades.
In other words, if you don't trust your chain of command enough that you think they very well MIGHT be directing your fire at innocent targets than you certainly should be shelling them. Duh.
I'm an active duty USAF Msgt and Airmen are still as free as they were when you were in, 'cept smoking weed went out in the early 1980s!. :)
People not in the military still have the usual exaggerated view of how much we are restricted. In fact, leadership are careful to explain where we are free to act.
BTW, whats a sm62704 ?
I was a 328X0 Comm weenie, then the various iterations of Engine puke,and now a Crew Chief.
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