Slate recently ran a great piece about the recent military crackdown the emails and blogs of soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Attorney and Iraq veteran Phillip Carter gives a succinct explanation as to why soldiers' communications need to be uncensored:
...Most Americans have little or no personal contact with the military. Soldiers' blogs, e-mails, and articles from the front thus help expose Americans to perspectives they would otherwise not hear. Citizens who care about the war can learn a great deal through insightful news coverage (subscription required) or they can read about it in one of the excellent books published about the war. But these third-person reports simply cannot convey the visceral immediacy of a soldier's letter home or blog, nor offer the same unfiltered voice.There's also the fact that journalism organizations have severely limited access to places outside the Green Zone and many of them simply can't afford the high cost of security and insurance needed to send and keep a sizable amount of journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is leading to a dearth of information about the Global War of Terror for the Struggle Against Violent Fascists or whatever the hell the administration is calling this quagmire now.
I understand that the military can't compromise their troops' safety and there is the chance someone could slip up and reveal crucial information online that could endanger them. But we also desperately need people to tell us what's really going on over there, not simply what the military officials choose to let us know. If it can't come from traditional news outlets, why shouldn't it come from the people living it everyday: soldiers and Iraqi civilians?
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1 comments:
unfortunately i don't expect anything otherwise from the American government -- or any empire trying to win a war that it's currently loosing for that matter.
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