Conflicted Over Army ROE

Again we have the Army trying to protect their information (which is essential) running up against the silliness of blocking some websites here at home from our men and women serving in Afghanistan. The Rules of Editing have apparently blocked sites such as Blackfive and War Is Boring.

These are two excellent sites which provide much necessary information. God only knows we do not have a media covering the war. Oh, wait a minute. Yes they do...if they're bleeding or someone screams 'Torture!', then they're all over it. Back to reality...

Here is the article which has me conflicted:

Dispatches from FOBistan: The Army’s Woeful IT Policies Poison the War Effort.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN — In January, when I first arrived here, I made an alarming discovery about the state of IT in the Army. Practically all of the blogs and other online tools I use to stay informed and connected to my colleagues (see here, for example) did not work. More accurately, they are deliberately blocked by a series of web filters, both automatically and manually constructed, in an effort to restrict inappropriate uses of the Internet from Army computers. This is a noble goal—I prefer that they block porn from office computers—but it is so unevenly implemented as to make me wonder what its real intent is.

...it also speaks to a deeper problem in how the military in general is approaching IT issues in the field: it makes absolutely no sense. Many of the blocked blogs are sources for deep, intelligent, and even essential analysis, news, and discussions. In fact, I only know they are blocked because I read them and see value in them. Moreover, when the Army’s own Command General Staff College is requiring its students to blog (how lucky they can actually read that news, as it is on SWJ), blocking other blogs, especially ones written by think tankers and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists of the very wars we are fighting, is nonsensical. The military wants to be relevant, it wants to be able to compete in the “information battlespace” (a wretched term I use only for simplicity’s sake), yet it cripples anyone’s ability to have situational awareness. It would be one thing if the Army were good at disseminating information internally, but they’re not. [Continue reading.]

I have offered my services to Joshua Foust, and you should think about offering yours as well. We must not forget about our men and women in uniform fighting for our very lives. You think you have it bad now? Wait until there is sharia law! Not on their watch. And I'm not about to let them think for one minute that we've forgotten them or that they are not loved and appreciated.

We are not the land of the free and the home of the brave because we sat on our butts...

May you walk with the LORD always, and when you cannot take another step, may He carry you the rest of the way until you can walk along side Him again.

Cross-posted @ Talon, The Conservative Underground, Smart Girl Politics and Rosemary's News and Ideas. Digg!