Out of Touch and Way Behind

This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving so I have been away from the TV, away from the newspapers and, most importantly, away from the web. I've missed a couple of good stories, but the one with the most interest to me - and aparently, at least for now - to the press is the Army Astroturf fiasco.

Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo and Hesiod over at Counterspin Central are doing a great job of bringing all the threads together on this one. It apparently involves a very similar - and in many cases exact copy - letter being sent to multiple newspapers around the country, signed by different soldiers. The last update is that a Battalion Commander has taken the responsibility for writing the letter and getting some of his soldiers to sign it to get the "real story" to the press.

I think the comments I left at Counterspin give my position on this very well:

[snip]

Like any large corporation, the military is very strict on what kinds of communications get sent to outside agencies - especially the press. No battalion commander I ever knew had the authority to release letters or any other communications to the press without the involvement of at least the post Public Affairs office. And that office is under the direct control of the post commander - typically a two star general.

And for anything that would potentially get wider dissemination that the local rag, the post commander would have to go to the Corps Public Affairs... and on up the chain.

No matter what get said on this by that leiutenant colonel or other spin meisters, this has got the finger prints of Dept. of Defense if not higher.

While I can appreciate soldiers wanting to get their side of the story out, this smacks of Defense Department propaganda. And coming as it does on the heels of BushCo.'s announcement that they are going to actively "get the story out" on their successes in Iraq, it can't help but put all these soldiers in the position of being dupes, pawns in Rummy's PR campaign. They work too hard, and put themselves in too much danger without this kind of help.

It's disgusting and I hope that the real perps are exposed.