Fear and Loathing in Iraq: censored?

The title of this post refers to a blog from a soldier in Iraq, who posted journal entries describing his experiences. The entries were damn good, and provided a rare window into Iraq and the war effort for people who have never been there and likely never will. In fact, the blog was so good that it got media attention -- including at least one of the entries being read verbatim on NPR.

That got him noticed... not only by the media, but by his commanding officer. The CO was supportive, but being noticed in that manner can be a two-edged sword. Shortly after that, he posted a copy of the First Amendment. And today, the whole thing is gone, leaving only the words "Over and Out".

The conclusions to be drawn are obvious: someone, probably in his chain of command, said to yank the blog. Now, I can understand that the military needs to keep a lid on strategic, tactical, and technical information, but that's not what the guy was posting. My instinct is that the blog was yanked because of the attention it got from NPR.

Now, I think the military has the power to do that while a soldier is in active duty. I doubt that the soldier would appreciate a big stink being raised about this -- that kind of attention you don't want. But I think it's a shame that the American public have been denied this window into what's really going on, and I'd like to express my moral support for the soldier behind the blog. Good luck... come back and write us a book about it.