Shutting down Milblogs

Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs

Some of the web’s more popular “milblogs”—blogs maintained by present or former active duty military personnel—are going quiet following a renewed push by U.S. military officials to scan sites for security risks.

Ten members of a Virginia National Guard unit have been tasked with reviewing both official and unofficial Army websites for potential operational security, or OPSEC, violations. Under the direction of the Army’s Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC), the reviewers look for text, photos or videos that may give away sensitive information. “Loose lips sink ships. That’s been around since World War I, and hasn’t changed in years,” said Lt. Col. Stephen Warnock.

Milblogs offer one of the last direct witnesses to the Iraq war from the point of view of front line soldiers—a sharp reversal from three years ago, when the U.S.-led invasion was among the most closely-watched military attacks in history. According to Editor and Publisher, the number of reporters embedded in military units has dropped from 770 at the height of the conflict to just nine today.

Eddie Beaver weighs in via email:

Hostility towards milblogging from senior leadership is not surprising, given the difficulty most of the senior cadre has with understanding, let alone, mastering information warfare and their utter failure to effectively shape the narrative of the war by the global, regional and local media with Iraq. They just don’t “get it”, as one can see from their recent efforts to restrict media embeds, which is so shockingly moronic that even staunchly pro-military embeds like Michael Yon have labeled it censorship and gone public with their criticism.

The price the military will pay for this mindless severe restriction of information will be high, denying the public a needed outlet of quality information about war efforts and creating a disturbing veil of secrecy that should not exist about what’s happening in Iraq (as well as Afghanistan and other current and future battlefields) with and to our military forces there.

People will begin asking, “what are they hiding?” and at a time when forces within the Iraqi government we’re aligned with are fielding death squad militas that are committing ethnic cleansing, it could create a perfect storm of misunderstanding, bloody secrets and inflammatory half-truths that worsens the lack of trust people within America and the world increasingly have in the US government and military.