Originally post by Carl,
It makes perfect sense from the standpoint of a mid to upper mid-level bureaucrat in the State or Defense Dept., somebody who is going to survive the upcoming change in administrations. This somebody has made the judgement that the change in administration will result in a precipitate bug out of Iraq that will not reflect honorably (to put it mildly) upon the US.
By shutting down the soldier bloggers, they prevent the most credible and direct observers of the disaster to come from reporting what they see as they see it. This reduces embarrassment to the bureaucrats and the politicos they serve.
There won't be enough mainstream media on the spot to make any difference and nobody in the US pays attention to Al-Jazeera. So figure the whole thing as an exercise in damage control before the fact.
I firmly believe this is true and it greatly saddens me.
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