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Mercifully, I'm not one of those G.I.'s with the thin-skin who likes to snivel, "Why don't you say good things about us?"

Frankly, I think it's more important that the bad stuff gets out than the good stuff, because it's MORE IMPORTANT. Okay, we rehabbed another school -- big deal. Let's keep our eye on the strategic, long-term implications of our little war in paradise; twenty years hence, no one's going to care that we rehabbed a school, but lots of folks are going to care that we tortured their cousins/brothers/fathers, accidentally killed their wives and daughters, or lost their families in a car bomb detonated to kill one of our patrols.

I'm reminded of the fact that the War Department in WWII was so sensitive to "morale" concerns, that it withheld release of a photograph of American war dead on Buna for nearly 2 years after the campagin. Ridiculous. Enough with the "support the troops/protect their morale" nonsense. If you read any soldier memoirs -- Civil War, WWI, WWII, etc. -- published shortly after a war's ending, you'll be immediately struck with the recurring theme: The civilians didn't understand us and never said good things about us. 'Twas ever thus.

If the Army wants the "straight dope" on the war to get out, why does it continue to hamstring and harass mil-bloggers like Colby Buzzell, who was threatened by the brass over his blog, "My War" (now the basis of his book by the same name).

Let the Army stand up a blog server on AKO -- a military equivalent of Blogspot, if you will -- and let the chips fall where they may. OPSEC, SHMOPSEC -- there's nothing we're doing that "they" can't figure out, anyway, and the out-going pipeline is usually shut down when there are casualties anyway. Only the few of us who have purchase commercial satellite systems and brought them in from Kuwait have unrestricted access to the 'Net.

If the Army wants the Good News out, let it be sent out by the people creating it -- the troops on the ground -- and not the M.F.A.-marketing major shills who wind up in Public Affairs.

Hey, redcat, I don't think you're giving Chris Ford enough credit. I mean, he got through an entire post without making a single overtly racist remark or calling for the murder of everyone who disagrees with him. That's a big step for him. Perhaps in a few decades he'll mature enough to talk rationally to acutal human beings. Not that I'll be holding my breath.

Kat says, "Mr. Arkin is implying that the bloggers are being bought."

No, he's not. This looks to me like a case of "The wicked flee where none pursue." (Prov 28:1a)

Kat says, "The military always puts out press releases. ...The only thing that is happening here is that the same info is being made to a non-legacy media outlet.
How is that now "propaganda"?"

The question is whether they are laudering it to remove the DoD label. As I posted, as long as it carries a DoD mark, it's perfectly legal.

Kat says, "Many "reports" are simply cut and paste from these press releases with very little research or investigation in the first place. So, what is the difference if it is cut and pasted (largely without any commentary that was not provided by the press release in the first place) by legacy media or bloggers?"

The state of the media nowadays is, as you say, pathetic. They do, as you say, parrot press releases. Is your goal to become a better sort of parrot? A parrot for good causes?

Kat says, "As John has noted, it's much ado about nothing. "

Well, I don't agree, and neither do many other people. It's taxpayer money and it's being spent in a manner that could be illegal.

Finally, I don't think William Arkin cares much what happens to the Washington Post. If you were aware of his career, he's not a reporter. He's a freelance author and consultant. He was, so to speak, "blogging" before blogging was cool.

Going up on Buddy's Bemusings gbuddy.blogspot.com this evening for tommorrow, 1/12. Thanks Bill for your aside.

The new 'Catch-22' for Iraq

"Good things are happening in Iraq, let's hear more about that. Then we can leave soon? No, we can't because if we leave things will go bad again. Then when can we leave? Oh, as soon as we aren't needed and not one day more."

But of course, we won't find that out unless we leave, will we?

More and more, it seems that the debate about whether we stay in Iraq or leave turns into a never-ending argument performing loop-de-loops in our heads.

If the whole idea sounds vaguely familiar, it is; especially if you are familiar with Joseph Heller's novel, "Catch-22." Heller's story involves a U.S. Army Air Force B-25 bomber unit based in the Mediterranean off Italy during World War II, where the main activity among the flyers seemed to be fighting off the insanity of war.

QuoteThere was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.Endquote

Wikipedia goes one better and breaks "Catch-22" down to its component parts:

QuoteWithin the book, "catch-22" is a military rule, the circular logic of which most notably prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions:

-- One may only be excused from flying bombing missions on the grounds of insanity;

-- One must assert one's insanity to be excused on this basis;

-- One who requests to be excused is presumably in fear for his life. This is taken to be proof of his sanity, and he is therefore obliged to continue flying missions;

-- One who is truly insane presumably would not make the request. He therefore would continue flying missions, even though as an insane person he could of course be excused from them simply by asking.Endquote

Bemusings suspects that the analogy of Iraq to Heller's "Catch-22" might not be perfect, but then what is? We further suspect that, while not perfect, it comes close.

These thoughts came to us the other day while reading an "Early Warning" column by William M. Arkin in the Washington Post. The point of the column was actually about the Army's hire of a PR agency to supply pro-military private Internet blogs with pro-Iraq War editorial content. Arkin begins his reaction to this development thusly:

QuoteAs a representative of the news media, I am constantly asked by military people, "How come the press doesn't report the good news from Iraq?"

My answer has been to say first that "the press" like "the military" is not one entity and that I know how annoyed they get when the military is characterized as one monolithic entity.

My second answer is to dispute the proposition. Plenty of "good news" stories come out of Iraq. The reconstruction and election and Iraqi police and military recruiting and bravery story has been told. In fact, one could argue that there is so much good news and progress, the President is measuring it to see when enough good news accumulates so that he can start withdrawing U.S. military forces in earnest.

(As an aside, I guess all of the military types and Iraq hawks who want MORE good news are essentially arguing that they are ready to withdraw U.S. forces and just need more evidence or backbone to carry out their eventual goal.) Endquote

So, you can see where Bemusings got the idea about the "Catch-22" angle. (This vague idea had been percolating in our coffee pot for awhile, but Arkin's column prompted us to put it in cyber space (can't say paper anymore)

So what did Arkin say about the Army spending taxpayer money to outsource their message?

QuoteSo, our tax dollars are going to get used so the Army can just add to its propaganda machine, shoveling "content" to like-minded bloggers? It all smacks of just another losing PR effort by a desperate team who seems to think that the only way it is going to get good press is to buy it or plant it. Hass MS&L's claim to fame in the blogging world as far as I can tell is that they maintain the General Motors' corporate blog. Did the Army have to hire the PR firm for a dying corporation as its new agent?Endquote

No doubt the Army will end it's reliance on the public relations folks just as soon as the situation in Iraq can be classified as "good . . ."

My one question after wading through the endless diatribes above is; "Does Permalink have a job or is Permalink chained to a computer desk and forced to make mind numbingly long commentary on an issue that is, as PL put it, a tempest in a teapot?'

If it is just that, a not too important issue, than why the hullabaloo?

When the DoD hires a PR firm to make them seem inviting, warm and fuzzy then it's time to "duck and cover." Hitler had great PR and graphics but how good of a thing was that? Did it work for you PL?

Kat,

Press releases are, by virtue of their composition, propaganda. It doesn't matter whether the MSM is pushing them, or a blogger. The MSM has already eroded the public's trust in the reliability of their information by being 'in too deep' with business, bureaucrats, and politicians. Bloggers will have to decide whether they, too, want to risk being grouped together with the MSM in some people's minds with regard to hyping particular issues for certain parties.

Massive propaganda efforts, and the MSM's involvement with same, may ultimately extinguish the concept of a 'free press' in the US. (This may have already occurred in some circles.) The idea of more of the same in the blog world is simply tiresome. If a Press Release is identified as being a PR and its' source is also identified, some readers may know how to interpret the piece. But, credibility can not be maintained without citing the actual author(s) of/contributors to any piece, IMHO, in any media.

What the TPTB and the MSM have failed to recognize is that the attraction to blogs is high precisely because many points of view are presented (on decent blogs) versus one targeted, specific message. Propaganda (press releases and 'news stories') actually serves to feed the popularity of blogs in that a prop piece presents what is supposed to be a 'true story' and then, after consuming the 'news story', the public goes onto the blog(s) of their choice and proceeds to research, analyze, discuss, and investigate the story's contents - from all perspectives. (Reporters used to provide this service.) Propaganda introduces the topics and a particular message - and then bloggers identify and discuss the details. The mono-message, as designed for the public's consumption, is deconstructed as soon as it hits the blogs.

It is understandable, then, why certain institutions would want to have input within the blog world. It is an attempt to influence opinion and reinforce a particular message - before the public makes up its' mind about the topic under discussion. However, the effort to introduce a mono-message onto blogs will fail 1) as soon as the topic begins to be discussed, 2) if the source/author of the message is identified as being with/working for a government agency, and/or 3) when the public discovers that the message is reminiscent of some other similar, recently hyped news story or theme. MSM "news" is currently being viewed with suspicion. Hence, regurgitated, rewritten, highly-spun news stories will likely be rejected on blogs.

Blogs highlight the fact that the public still wants to know what is happening in the nation and in the world, but does not trust the government or the MSM to provide them with the actual facts or the different perspectives that are required to understand the complexity of a given 'story'. And so, bloggers and their contributors, mostly working without pay - research and provide their own 'information' and perspectives because if they don't, they will be left to consider a targeted, restricted message that is missing many relevant parts. The public at large has become adept at recognizing propaganda to the degree that they are now seemingly willing to voluntarily compile and consider their own more highly detailed version of the 'news'. More power to them.

BTW, 'twisted' clothing isn't an issue for me. I have just grown weary of the BSers - every institution and entity that is supposed to be providing us with the good old, but still elusive, truth - and can't seem to do so for myriad reasons.

Their combined failures make reading 'news' for 'information' an exercise in futility.

Bloggers are free to publish the press releases of anyone they like.

The only thing that would be unacceptable is if they weren't clearly labelled, or were presented as the independent views of individual soldiers.

Considering the views of those who haunt these blogs, it's unlikely to have much impact anyway.

And if it does, it may not be the impact the US Army is looking for.

Does anyone here remember Gen Westmoreland's "Five o' clock follies", the MACV press conferences? The optimistic piffle they put out ultimately served only to discredit the Army's propaganda machine.

The funny thing is that the facts in these releases are almost always true. But anyone relying on them for the big picture will find themselves continually surprised by actual events.

I'll criticize the media if I want. I am a news consumer. As a consumer, I have the right to complain about the product when it does not meet my needs, does not look, feel or operate as advertised. I buy it and my links to and hits on these sites drive their revenue, ie, I am the consumer. (And, as a person that left the Democrat party, I fully recall some major complaints by Democrats during the Clinton Admin, me being one of them, but that doesn't mean complaining about it under either political construct is reporting=good, so, what's politics got to do with it?)

And, when I see "honest reporting" I don't complain about. But this is dishonest or at least disengenuous implying that bloggers will be "bought" if they do what the media has been doing this whole time, ie getting press releases from the DoA or DoD and printing them.

Honestly, what are you scared of? That something you disagree with might actually get play time?

It is long past time for "outraged" Republicans to quiet down and cease with the "tisk-tisk" comments to honest journalists- listen. In case you missed it-don't read the paper like "W", the GOP has planted propaganda supporting their programs as regular news copy in papers across the nation. Additinally, they let a male escort into the WH-with press credentials from the Secret Service to ask softball questions or planted questions during live press events.
Outraged? There is no word to describe the way I feel about Bush, Cheney and Rove other than cheats and liers. No president has even gotten this dirty with the American people-lies with audicity? It galls me and Bush has makes it a hobby.
Outraged? A thousand times worse. If he even had to deal with the consiquences of his failures, he would no longer be laughing. Try accountability!

Let me re-iterate, as short as I can, my points:

1) Mr. Arkin is implying that the bloggers are being bought
-Military pays PR firm, PR firm solicits bloggers to post ergo bloggers are bought (even though the bloggers have indicated that no money or contract was offered)

I mean, isn't that why redcat and others here are getting their panties in a twist about "propaganda" because they understood that implication, too?

2) The military always puts out press releases. Until now, these press releases were usually pushed out to legacy media via usual wire services (and probably via PR firms to the legacy media - it's all part of that decade long project to put more military activities under civilian companies and decrease the cost of the military) or made available on military websites (like defense link or centcom) where people went to find it and often linked to it anyway. The only thing that is happening here is that the same info is being made to a non-legacy media outlet.

How is that now "propaganda"? Are we only allowed to read information from commercial media and, doing so, does that not give the power of information to a single entity that can form it to their own needs, readership and revenue trends?

3) Many "reports" are simply cut and paste from these press releases with very little research or investigation in the first place. So, what is the difference if it is cut and pasted (largely without any commentary that was not provided by the press release in the first place) by legacy media or bloggers? Nothing except legacy media no longer controls how much and when.

4) As John has noted, it's much ado about nothing. Yet, as I noted, and any business manager worth their salt would be doing, a commercial, for profit entity has to watch every revenue line and know where they are losing money, why and what they are going to do about it.

If the miltiary by passes the media, not only do they not control the information, but they don't get all the readers, thus they don't get the links from the internet, thus they don't get the hits to their websites and thus, they don't get the same amount of advertising money. And, in case you haven't kept up with the latest business info, losing 10,000 readers and links (probably more the way that the internet works at aggregating information through links which will start drifting away from the legacy media sites for military news) can have a nasty effect on that profit line. Less profits, less paid reporters or paid reporters that get less salary.

So, all this hoopla about the integrity of the message seems like a case of denial when somewhere in there, the subconscious kicks in and says "danger, will robins, danger".

CF: "Unlike Redcat, who holds the only truth and the only issue in war is the body count and getting the warporn pics of manifestations of it ..."

Darn, CF. Guess we'll just skip the points in my post that you deliberately refrained from addressing and move forward? I was expecting a highly polished, analytically-based response from you, one which is reflective of the content of your prior posts here.

The "truth". No one knows the truth about Iraq - why we are there, how it is actually going, or why we are staying, even after we 'leave'. I don't know the truth and neither do you. We 'know' what we read and hear. How much of that information is the 'truth'? Not much, I fear. And, based on the amount of propaganda currently being produced and that produced before the Iraqi conflict, one could surmise that great effort has been and is still being expended to hide the truth. Someone is quite nervous about information with regard to Iraq. Why do you think that is?

It is apparent that perception has been deemed more important than the truth in the US today. You are comfortable with that idea. In fact, you seemingly support it. I am not comfortable with that idea and therefore can not support efforts to deceive the American people, especially when those efforts are being promoted by the US government and military. In lieu of being deceived, I'd rather accept the idea that 'conquering and controlling' Iraq was an ill-conceived concept that failed miserably. At least I would then be dealing with the truth, as it has already been revealed to us, over time.

The US is losing in Iraq. Two trillion dollars later, the US is now supposedly negotiating with the very factions that they are simultaneously trying to eliminate. Reconstruction funds are no longer being appropriated for Iraq by the US despite the fact that the country's infrastructure is destroyed. A new generation of 'terrorists' are now supposedly being trained in Iraq. Are these 'facts' at all a measure of the "success" of which you speak? The bombings continue, on both sides of the conflict. An air war has now replaced the failed ground war. Take a city, give it back, and take it again. Go ahead and spin all you want. The "facts" appear to be speaking for themselves, despite many individual's best efforts to distort them. Perhaps there is a God, after all?

Here's the interesting thing, though. Years from now, the "truth" about the Iraq war and its' consequences, will be known. What will also be known are the identities of those that hid, obfuscated, and distorted the truth. Their rationales for doing so will also likely be known. I, for one, am sincerely looking forward to those revelations.

As long as it is plainly labeled and therefore accessible to public crossexamination and congressional oversight, I don't see any basic problem with the military putting out its view of what is going on on blogs.

I also agree that the Pentagon's effort smells like losers trying to salvage their pride.

As for some of the posters whose defensive and hyperbolic reactions suggest that they might benefit from a second opinion on how these posts sound, I have posted some comments on Fuzzilicious. (www.haloscan.com/comments/sbsmusik/113690452958316857/#49561)

Kat, John, they await you.

Having been doing some checking around - this "exclusive offer" doesn't strike me as all that exclusive.

Nor do I think it will be much more than an ARNEWS feed, which you can get here: http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/news/

So, by all means let the Left, Right, and In-Between media worry about it - hey, it's their job - but I'm guessing this, in reality, will be no different than expanding the list of people (i.e., adding to the MSM names already on the list) for standard OCPA new releases.

In other words, this is a tempest in a teapot.

One of the bloggers mentioned, fuzzilicious, posts a response to Arkin on her Blog. She states that she is more connected and knowledgeable about the military than most reporters she reads. Not surprising if she sees the same exclusive MSM news us active duty and Vets see. (1)Daily death count and total tally accompanied by the usual clucking about wasted lives and Bush lies. (2) The photos and videos the Iraqi stringers employed by the MSM over any other news - the "after bomb blast" porn the media craves on the "if it bleeds, it leads" tenent of mass media journalism. (3)Anti-war opinion pieces that break no new news masquerading as news.

http://fuzzilicious.blogspot.com/2006/01/bought-by-army.html

In short, completely distorted according to the soldier's perspective on what they see and omitting all individual and group accomplishments.

It's almost as if D-Day had been covered by reporters and film crew drawn like flies to dead bodies - lingering on them, bemoaning them as they drew sustenance from them, darting away to settle on hundreds of French bodies in Caen who were colateral damage as US and UK pilots bombed the railyards and bridges. All death, moaning about death and nothing on how the invasion succeeded. If the American public had been given the Iraqi sort of reportage back then, few would doubt we lost badly and paid far too high a price in dead and perhaps a negotiated deal with the Nazis was the best option. With Eisenhower's announcement we had succeeded dismissed as "happy talk" that did not account for the "tragedy of Normandy".

Unlike Redcat, who holds the only truth and the only issue in war is the body count and getting the warporn pics of manifestations of it - the complexity of a nation at war goes far beyond that, and by coverage by an anti-war media far removed from the frontlines - the reality is badly distorted. And, unlike in other wars where all people could do was ineffectually bitch at the mass media, now alternatives exist in other sorts of media not controlled by liberal elites. You learn more about the actual situation in Iraq from the Blogs of Froggy Ruminations, Bill Roggiaro, Michael Yon, various Iraqis than you do from the NYTImes.

As I said before, the birth of alternatives to the big media is not without growing pains. There are difficulties with countering enemy influences in winning the battle for the media that other wars didn't have - the good bloody stuff the bad guys give Al Jazeera, the embarassments that the MSM happily gives to the other side for propaganda, the protocols and norms of the new blogs. Who influences them? Are the influencers of major media like the owners of major advertisers like Macy's or activist groups close to the NYTimes like the ACLU OK, but the flow of money and support to Blogs unacceptable? This is all new, it will be sorted out, but clearly the Blogs are compensating for the lack of adequate MSM war coverage and it's overpoliticized anti-war perspective in the eyes of military families, troops, and foreign policy & military analysts - which is why the Blogs sprung up and why they are here to stay - both public access and "intranet" style blogs that are viewer restricted.

The battle between the corporate media and the blogs isn't starting. It's already over. The blogs won.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/blogger.html

I nearly forgot...

Here's my "bought" blog:

http://themiddleground.blogspot.com/

Of course, if you read the content, you might get the idea that I'm "bought" by certain Media entities considering how many stories I link to from them.

Oh, wait, that's not the same thing. LOL

CF,

The reporters, or "French Marxists" as you refer to them, initially selected and purposefully embedded by the US government, are 'bunkered down' because it is not safe to leave their hotels rooms, etc., to actively research stories in Iraq, just like it is not safe to go on patrol in Iraq. And BTW, the news to date has already been 'sanitized', by the reporters, or "French Marxists" as you refer to them, initially selected and purposefully embedded by the government.

Looks like you are OK with that idea, the " Army steering certain bloggers as a sort of networked "Stars and Stripes" that will greatly enhance the news product and give the American public a better, more complete picture." Stupid me, I'm not OK with that idea. I'd rather have the truth.

And your comment: "3 soldiers killed by IED, Ooooooooh the humanity of their wasted lives, and here is a video that almost lovingly focuses on the wrecked HUMVEE and the bomb crater"? Yes, three dead US soldiers, lives lost, as in never coming home again, and the picture of the wrecked Humvee that they died in. Some parent of a soldier might want to see that wrecked Humvee for the same reason that some people go and look at wrecked autos after a fatal accident. That is called reality. Keep the spin for yourself.

Soldiers don't need blogs to instruct them on 'lessons learned'. I suspect that they learn and reflect on the success of each mission as soon as it is accomplished. Are they doing 'good things' there? I would think so, when they aren't being killed or injured or when Iraqi's aren't being killed or injured. Do you believe that those efforts will outweigh Iraqi anger at the invasion of their country? I doubt it, but only time will tell.

I can't wait for the 'books to be written' on both the Iraq war and this period of American history. Why? Because when they are, it will mean that this period of turmoil within the US - and Iraq - is finally over. Until then, spin this period in American history any way that you want. It's been bad, both countries have been incredibly damaged, and both are now changed - forever. Glad to see that you, at least, are happy with all the 'progress' we've made.

I guess I take issue with a few things that have been said about this. First of all, the title is misleading because you are implying these blogs will take money for this effort:

The Army's Buying PR

I know your first sentence talks about a PR firm that the military has hired and I'm sure somewhere in there the intent was to talk about the military using and paying for a PR firm, but since the rest of your post was about blogs, you and I both know that you are implying these blogs are "bought" in some way. It sounds like the same hatchet job that the Post did on Bill Roggio.

When in truth, the military working with PR firms is not new news (except maybe in the media who are now acting all surprised when I'd bet my last dollar this paper and many like it have been approached with stories or received over the "wire" reports pushed, ranked or otherwise indicated by PR organizations - is the media "bought"? Or, because they choose which of these stories to print and follow up on, are they still independent?)

Second, from my perspective, this sounds like an end-run operation of the media itself that has been hostile to blogs as some sort of "rabble" to try to discredit blogs (what are you saying? See, they aren't all "independent" thus are untrustworthy as opposed to papers like the Post?)

Third, you'd be really surprised to learn that the military has been doing more than hiring PR firms. For instance, after linking to several stories from Centcom, a very nice PAO sent me an email and pointed out that there were icons and other nifty features on the site that I could use and would I consider giving them a link on my side bar? (Oh, no, the Nazis in the government had a site meter and could see what IPs and web addresses had visited their site! Er...wait a minute, doesn't every website basically do that, like this paper? I mean, I know I have a site meter that provides me a list of "referrers" whenever I want and I regularly go see who's referring to me and why and, hey, sometimes, I even end up linking permanently to those sites and vis-a-versa...it's all a conspiracy I tell ya!)

As a blogger, I actually didn't have a problem with this. Yes, I realize they were asking for "free publicity" but three factors were at play: 1) I do link to them and people read my blog to get a round up of stories and a few comments or, when I have time, longer analysis of the situation, so why should I hold them hostage to only seeing the links to the military site whenever I feel like discussing it? What if they wanted to read information themselves on a regular basis after they saw comments from me? Thus, good reason to put a permanent link on the side bar; 2) If I put a link on my sidebar, I don't have to go searching through a long list of "favorites" or do a search to locate the site again, I can just hit it myself on a regular basis to see if there were any interesting stories that went along with my general theme for the day (kind of like the media and news wire services except I get to by pass the media and decide for myself, and, oh, I don't get paid); 3) The military offered me no money nor made any pitches about PR or gave me any sob story about lack of information getting out, the email was in fact nearly a mirror of many emails that I had gotten from other people asking me to give them a link on my side bar or the many emails I had sent fellow travellers requesting the same. A very common practice on the internet for both commercial and non-commercial entities (see the links to other stories and advertisers on this page of the online Washington Post; same goes for personal websites except there is a whole lot less money- if any- being exchanged)

An interesting fact for myself, that I'm sure will apply to these other bloggers, linking to Centcom on my side bar did not make me link directly to anymore stories from there than I had previously. I still read the site and still decide if I am going to link or talk about any story. the only difference is, providing the link, if I don't provide a story from there, my readers can do an "end run" around me and go read things for themselves. Shockingly, the very thing that the internet is best at: free flow of info and freedom of choice to read or not (something that papers like the Post just aren't very good at comparatively speaking).

As I am a reader of these blogs that you mention, I am aware of the content that they provide already and none of them are parrots of some military line, all have posted on different subjects (for instance, Fuzzilicious blogs a lot about the project she is involved with Project Valour IT that provides voice activated laptops for wounded soldiers) and they aren't always "good news". They blog about what hits them at that moment and I am thinking they will continue to do the same, just as I have, ie, be independent and decide whether any information provided fits with their current thoughts or stories they are talking about.

Thus, whatever you are implying here about the lack of independence of blogs is just dead wrong. They aren't going to become some dreaded automaton "wire service" for the media just turning out the stories fed to them on a daily basis. You have one part right and that is that blogs have been independent and will stay so unless they are a "corporate blog" and then all bets are off.

Fourth, why are the main stream media folks so upset about this? The military is doing an end run around them and looking for other outlets for the news. There are a few issues that have been at play since the beginning. The media is a commercial entity. It needs to make money to stay alive. It only has so many reporters, so much space and so much time to put out their product. Ipso Facto, the media tries to cover the widest gamut of stories in order to attract the widest variety of readers so, by necessity, it cannot cover all the stories. And, Mr. Arkin, as a consumer of news, I find your ascertions that there are plenty of good news stories out there kind of funny. It's true of course that there are "good news" stories, however, noting my "consumer of the news" description, I'm well aware of how many "good news" stories come out compared to the latest three paragraphs about political strife inside the war zone and out, bombings, dead and wounded, etc, etc, compared to "good news" or any other news about schools being built, reconstruction or our military interacting with and working with the locals to build a better Iraq. As a matter of fact, funny enough, most of us who comment on military subjects now refer to Afghanistan as the "forgotten war" since there is such a dirth of news coming out of there from the MSM- yeah that's sarcasm - so I found that comment a little disengenuous.

Of course, the other end run is the media filter, often referred to as "investigation" and "editing" which means that the stories coming out will a) not be controlled by the media and b) not include the media's own analysis (spin?) of the story; c) be straight from the military's mouth without any aggregating information (oh, no, propaganda?).

Well, here's a shocker for Mr. Arkin and his readers here: did you know most of those three paragraph blurbs you get from yahoo, CNN, FOX and even this paper are cut and paste jobs from (ready for this) press releases provided by PR firms; PR officers for corporations, poltical offices and other organizations (including the Republican, Democrat and various political and lobbying organizations); AP, AFP, UPI and other "wire" services that do the reporting for them; public affairs press releases from the military and, shockingly, press releases from terrorist groups via other outlets like the internet or those "wire" services I noted above where the groups send info just like they were any other organization?

If a reader is lucky, some poor schmuck might take the time to call the PR or PAO listed on the story to get a few more details, but more often than not these stories are just what came off the wire (and plenty of AP stuff are cut and paste press releases themselves).

So, again I say, this is rather disengenous of Mr. Arkin to imply that this process that by passes the media is some how going to be worse than the current process, some how threatens anybody's independence, some how will be any more or less of a "propaganda" effort than it already is and is "buying" blogs.

I mean, do any readers of this newspaper or watchers of the cable or network news really think that these organizations have 100,000 reporters covering every story and catching blurbs from politicos and other folks around the globe 24/7? Did I mention that the media is a commercial entity? Anybody think they'd be profitable if they had to do that?

The most "editing" that goes on with some of these stories is that some copywriter cuts and pastes the parts of the press releases they think are the most important. The rest of the story gets dumped on the editing floor along with any press releases that don't fit with the days agenda or simply are deemed less important (or less able to catch readers attention thus less of a revenue driver)than the stories they choose to cover (remember, commercial entity, limited space and time, must make money).

So, here's the deal, this paper will continue to operate as it always has. It will cut and paste news wire stories and press releases, pay for columns from people such as Mr. Arkin and, when its in the budget and fits the days news, pay for stories that are hopefully well researched and as well sourced as many stories from blogs from the few free lancers and "investigative journalists" covering these stories. The difference is, there will be a new source of information out there that will most likely take a small percentage of readers from this paper and thus cut into its revenues (and the potential salary for writers like Mr. Arkin).

Now THAT is threatening.

Typepad isn't accepting my trackback ping, but here's my response at Fuzzilicious Thinking:

http://fuzzilicious.blogspot.com/2006/01/washington-post-readers.html

Karen @ 12:22:05 PM:

Nice rant but your fallacy is that you equate criticism of the administration and perhaps even criticism of torture with hating America.

If, on the other hand, you're point is that these papers don't report enough good news to go along with the obvious bad news, why don't you use this space to point us to links of good news, as others have. Surely you can find some piece at the Washington Times, or somewhere else? Wouldn't that be more helpful to your argument (whatever that may be) than simply spouting unsupported accusations? Could it be that, in reality, there actually is a lot more bad news than good, and that's whats skewing the odds here?

How sad. Most Americans already know that information about/from Iraq is severely spun. Why not negate the level of trust in the government and the military even more and better yet, let the American people continue to pay for it? What the heck? It's only a matter of honesty and integrity - and people have come to accept that these two entities don't really matter anymore.

Don't worry, though. The American people and the world are and have been watching and listening, maybe more closely than TPsTB realize.

Have you even LOOKED at Fuzzilicious Thinking? Do you even know the content of the character who you have just denigrated? This is not some powerhouse mil blogger. The author is, in her words:
"I'm just a humble, largely-anonymous teacher from Arizona who thought I'd try out this blogging thing, immediately got sucked up into Valour-IT, and now feels like she has to keep blogging to keep a voice for Valour-IT."
Do you even know what VALOUR-IT is? It's a program to get voice activated laptops into the possession of soldiers too injured to be able to type...
But now she will be targeted by every troll and self proclaimed "conspiricy investigator" because her blog appeared in some "source", and you have decided that she is worthy of skylining...
She doesn't need to be fed "good news" by the Army. She (and the rest of us) get information straight from the war-fighters on the ground, sans any political slant or commentary; Why don't you, and the rest of the "vaunted" Fifth Estate? Or are the "sources" of an amatuer blogger too accurate and not politically slanted enough for your tastes?

If the MSM (or its various entities) is publishing "good news", why are the war-fighters coming back home and complaining that the MSM isn't reporting the events that our forces have seen with their own eyes, and accomplished with their own hands? There are tons of good stories out there, but they have been largely ignored by the MSM.
It's no wonder that the war-fighters are bitter... They have had to fight two wars: the one that they are winning overseas, and the one that they are not allowed to fight here at home...

The army has blogs, and the terrorists have the Washington Post and the NY Times and the MSM. I say let the Army use the words of Americans who actually like the country, who aren't living in doorman buildings in NY and DC, and who don't think like the democrats that soldiers like to torture because they are a bunch of hillbillies. Considering the unchallenged awe that the MSM ate up anything Murtha said, and never questioned his senility nor his brother's financial gain from the funnelling of funds from the Pentagon on Murtha's say so, I hope the blogs become the new Mainstream Media and the WaPo becomes a memory.

"To that end, the Army plans to offer you and selected bloggers exclusive editorial content on a few issues you're likely to be interested in," Kondek says.

And by what right or color of law does a taxpayer funded government agency pick and choose which blogs it slips "exclusive" content to?

Oh wait, I forgot: 9/11 changed everything.

Interesting. The Army is grappling with Blogs right now. It is a new phenomenon and they are trying to see how to regulate it.

It can be good for the military because right now, the MSM in Iraq is largely hostile to the military and the USA, and largely bunkered into "safe areas" where they rely on stringers to bring back the bloodshed stories and photos and DON'T focus much on positive stories. The soldier blogs ARE the frontline news, and they are the ones breaking the stories that the books written on this war will focus on, not the "3 soldiers killed by IED, Ooooooooh the humanity of their wasted lives, and here is a video that almost lovingly focuses on the wrecked HUMVEE and the bomb crater". The soldiers are creating a more complete picture of what is going on in Iraq than the journalists.

But there is harmful potential in Blogs, as several soldiers have been disciplined for deliberately or inadvertently revealing tactics and operational details that could endanger their fellow soldiers. Other soldiers have been disciplined for opining on matters (who is having sex with who, subordinate or superior's inadequacies) tending to undermine good order and discipline. And a few bloggers busted very hard for trying to trade gruesome war porn pictures soldiers shot to a UK firm in return for free access to the UK website's sex porn. Unlike civilian society, there are limitions on military free speech. Always have been, always will be.

But this will be actively debated within. I like the idea of Army steering certain bloggers as a sort of networked "Stars and Stripes" that will greatly enhance the news product and give the American public a better, more complete picture than some French Marxist bunkered down in a bar in the Green Zone can. We have to worry that the military will attempt to "sanitize" news beyond what good order, good discipline and tactical and strategic security necessitate. A tension will exist about this until the soldiers are actually trained in information awareness and C4 Comms beyond what is simply classified and unclassified info - and the new military "Norms" are understood by all.

The other good news about soldier blogs is that if used internally and protected by soldiers secure ID and encryption, it gives us another great "lessons learned" tool and advantage over the enemy that lacks the ability to learn so fast. Blogs the enemy and sadly, the American public cannot access offer the potential for soldiers in-theater to rapidly disseminate tribal knowledge to other units in other geographic locales and give more thorough turnover to units still stateside who will be rotated in to relieve them.

Honest to Christ, Americans are the new naazis!

You don't suppose this Baby Noor's condition has anything to do with D.U. ?

US Soldiers save 'Baby Noor'
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/soldierstories/story.php?story_id_key=8424
"Baby Noor is an example of the 'good' Soldiers are doing in the country."

Horseshit!

Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets
http://www.coastalpost.com/06/01/03.html
...eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 US military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.

Mr Arkin - I invite you to this post (I'm outing myself, too, that should be exciting!)

http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/005110.html

OTHERSIDE123.BLOGSPOT.COM
WWW.ONLINEJOURNAL.COM
WWW.TAKINGAIM.INFO

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NIM20060103&articleId=1713

Al-Qaeda in Lebanon: More Neocon Hooey

by Kurt Nimmo

January 3, 2006
One Day in The Empire

Not only is the omnipresent "al-Qaeda" at work in Gaza (see previous post) but if we are to believe Reuters and the New York Times, the custom-made (by the CIA and Pakistan's ISI) terrorist outfit is also busy at work in Lebanon, firing missile salvos into northern Israel. "The lion sons of al Qaeda launched ... a new attack on the Jewish state by launching 10 missiles ... from the Muslims' lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state," a "statement" on a supposed "al-Qaeda" website claims. "The statement could not be authenticated, but was posted on a main Web site frequently used by Iraqi insurgent groups. It did not give the date of the attack," Reuters adds. No explanation here why U.S. military intelligence has not attacked or taken down a website run by "Iraqi insurgent groups," unless of course this particular website is a Pentagon black op.

Fortunately, at least somebody in Israel is not buying the "al-Qaeda" in Lebanon fantasy. "For this to be true, it would mean that al Qaeda, a virulently anti-Shi'ite group, has penetrated the heartland of Hizbollah, a virulent Shi'ite group, on such a scale that it can mount a rocket salvo independently... This claim should be regarded with extreme skepticism," warns "Israeli security sources," according to Reuters.

But never mind. Here in America, where it is believed Muslims are all pressed out of the same militant mold, the hare-brained idea is big news. "If the reports are accurate, the attack on Israel may be a strong indication that Al-Qaeda is expanding its terrorist activities and is continuing to establish bases in countries friendly to its terrorist ideologies," speculates the Conservative Voice. In other words, Hezbollah, a Shi'ite organization initially formed to kick Israeli invaders out of Lebanon, is "friendly to [al-CIA-duh] terrorist ideologies," probably including the dead al-Zarqawi's declared jihad against "infidel" Shia Muslims, resulting in dozens of suicide bombings in predominately Shia Iraq. Never mind this makes less than absolutely no sense--as demonstrated, casual news readers in America will buy just about anything when it comes to Islamic terrorism (remember: Saddam was in cahoots with Osama on nine eleven, although this preposterous idea is now losing credibility--after more than four years--with the American people who are habitually slow to adopt reality and are bereft of common sense, thanks to their dependence on the corporate media, essentially a subsidiary of the CIA by way of Operation Mockingbird and other diligent and long-standing mass propaganda efforts).

It stands to reason, if we follow the sort of convoluted logic offered by the Conservative (or neocon) Voice, that Syria is a country friendly to "al-Qaeda" terrorist ideologies as well. "Hizbullah has been using Russian-made RPG rockets purchased by Syria to target Israel, outgoing IDF Intelligence Chief Aharon Zeevi-Farkash charged," reports the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Meanwhile, Kommersant, the Russian newspaper owned by fugitive Israeli citizen and criminal oligarch Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, ran this accusation as gospel truth with the headline "Israelis Hit by Russian Missiles."

CNN, the one-time domain for the Pentagon's Fourth Psychological Operations Group, was not as blunt as the house organ for the Zionist Berezovsky. "In what may be a sign that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group is expanding its operations, Al Qaeda in Iraq has posted a statement claiming responsibility for firing missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel earlier this week," CNN reports. "It is not clear why Al Qaeda in Iraq--a Sunni Arab terror group that has launched attacks against Shiite targets inside Iraq--would be operating in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah frequently fires rockets across the border into Israel. Hezbollah has strong ties with Iran, a Shiite country."

Indeed, it is not clear at all--in fact the claim is absurd. But then so is the claim al-Zarqawi, long ago documented as dead (and also said to be of sub-standard intelligence when he was alive, not exactly the best candidate to run a sprawling "insurgent" movement in Iraq), has expanded his fantastical operation into Lebanon, regardless of the obviously insurmountable and mind-boggling logistical nightmares associated with such a maneuver.

Of course, it is plain as day why we are weathering these stupid and admittedly baseless claims--because it is part of the neocon plan to bombard us daily with a ceaseless stream of anti-Muslim propaganda in preparation for attacks to come (and not necessarily invasions; as the case with Syria demonstrates; the plan is isolate the country and impose United Nations sanctions, ultimately--as the neocons and the Jabotinksy Zionists would have it--resulting in the sort of society-wide disaster that occurred in Iraq after more than a decade of murderous sanctions, killing 500,000 Iraqi children).

As well, the neocons and their Israeli taskmasters are working overtime to peg legitimate resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon as purveyors of the sort of bloody serial murder attributed to "al-Qaeda," a largely chimerical boogeyman. Of course, this plan is destined to fail because people living under occupation--in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon under the unsuccessful Israeli occupation--will continue to resist as it is basic human nature to resist such criminal depredation.