I have a problem, a concern and I need the advice of you, my fellow Kossacks.
First let me confess something. A few days ago I wrote that I was relatively new to going on blogs. This is not entirely true. I did once go on a dog rescue blog and through that rescued Sally the Psycho Dog from what would otherwise have been her final day on death row at a pound on the Herefordshire/Worcester border.
I am now banned from that site. How it came about is perhaps illustrative of what blogging and a community like DKos is all about to me.
New to the use of the internet and writing on it, I began to find that people liked my posts about my collie dog Ceri. Those who have read my account on here of my journey to find and meet the bull "Shottle" know that sometimes I like to write about true events but in the style of a story. They are written in the way that you would write a good piece of fiction but they are accounts that are totally factual in content.
Someone else started to copy my style and produced a long series of "true life" stories of past and current events that were extremely well written. The community of well meaning dog lovers, committed to a nation wide network of dog rescue, took the stories to heart. As these progressed, however, it became clearer and clearer that they were not true in any proper meaning of the word. They began to include events like the sickness of the writer, which drew enormous sympathetic response and offers of support from the community. I began to feel uncomfortable and emailed the owner of the site and posted a polite enquiry about the validity of the stories. The community wanted desperately to believe in their truth and turned on me in great outrage. I got publicly banned for causing trouble from that one mild post. In time, of course, the writer of the stories turned out to have a commercial objective and started trying to solicit money from the community for purposes other than dog rescue.
I might now have handled it differently as I have got used to what blogs are all about. I still believe, however, that you must trust the community in which you are writing to be truthful; that the people you are exchanging views with are honest in their purpose and agenda. I am not naive but I have to have some confidence in those I am talking to in order to make it all worthwhile. I have little sympathy with those who say "Come on. Get real. This is only a blog!". Maybe Dkos and Boomantribune are only blogs, but if I did not think they were truthful, then I would not spend my time on them.
Which brings me to something that I have noticed may be happening here and elsewhere. I need to be careful because as much as anything, this diary is inviting you to say that I am wrong.
A few days ago, a serving marine in Iraq came on to Boomantribune to answer questions. This is an example of one of his responses:
Welshman, thanks for your comments. Allow me not to beat around the bush, despite what some on this thread call "Bush&co" there are unintended consequences here, one of which is low and behold the people of Iraq are stepping up and taking control of their destiny. In the last 96 houre there have been three seperate incidents of regular Iraqi civillians taking back their streets, granted the insta-justice dealt here would be considered vigilanteism in the US; we are not in the US. ......
I just don't see this overreaching conspiracy here. ......Who would you rather have in control of the oil LOCs lines of communication the US or the Chineese? .........
Can we win militarily? No, it is being won this way, for every badguy we kill we put shoes on the feet of 5-10 children, we feed hungry families, and repair broken generators, and help families identify lost loved ones from the former regime. We win it one day, one person at a time. Not trying to sound cliche, but it is as I see it.
Yesterday, my Iraq diary had a contribution from "Winter Patriot" who was serving in Iraq. Here is a response from him:
Iraqis are right to be outraged by the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. They are also right to be upset that management controls over the DFI were weak. We need to address these failures better. Human rights abuses are a cultural problem in the military, much like creeping risk acceptance was a cultural problem at NASA before the Columbia accident. However, the military is not scrutinizing the culture that allowed these abuses to occur. Congress is letting them off easy, because the GOP doesn't want to derail operations in Iraq and Democrats focused their blame on the White House Counsel.
As for the bases, I am not sure that the construction methods tell everything about our nation's military plans here. The bases can always be put to other uses. Also, we are learning that constructing buildings out of masonry and concrete is safer, cheaper, and employs the local workforce better than shipping in prefab trailers and stuff. I am hopeful that most will soon be universities or hospitals, but now I am glad to have a sturdy roof over my head.
We do have permanent bases in other countries where things are peaceful.
Today we have the diary "The answers to your questions for a Marine in Iraq. Here are some answers from him:
We do use depleted uranium but it is rare because they are expensive. The DPU bullets are good for cutting through armor and reinforced positions but there are no harmful effects from the bullets unless one hits you, then you are dead so you don't care anyway. The source of uranium is depleted so it is past it's half life. No radiation. There is more from talking on a cell phone. We use the DPU bullets cause they are 10 times denser than any steel we know of.
We don't watch the news cause much of it is unreal. There are hundreds of convoys a day and maybe one gets hits and maybe one person gets injured. The media makes it sound as if people die every day and all the time. There are like 500,000 service men and women here and possibly one dies per day. Compare that to the number of traffic accidents that kill people in the US out of 500,000 people a day. It is safe. Very safe.
Very good. it is very safe here. Rumor has it we will be consolidating troops soon and letting the Iraqi's run the show.
I would like you to look at these responses and see what opinion you form generally about the writers and tell me in your comments. I feel I need to know.
Do you remember in the debates, the second one I think, when John Kerry turned to Bush and said something along the lines of "The seven or eight bases being built in Iraq look remarkably permanent to me". Can you imagine how it would have turned the debate round in his favour if Bush had simply looked at him and said, as Winter Patriot says, "I am working for the day soon when our boys and girls come home and those bases become the universities and hospitals that we are designing them for".
You see, I had never heard that argument until Winter Patriot put it. It made me hesitate. Maybe my criticism was - isn't -constructive? That it is me who is living in the unreal world.
Who are these guys we are speaking to? I read their posts and they are calm, coherent, and well expressed. They are persuasive. They don't promote Bush, even hint at being just a little critical at times, and don't argue with our politics. They just present information courteously and well, with the authority of one speaking to us right from the heart of the war zone in Iraq. Who am I, how can I, sitting securely in my living room, contradict them?
Yet there is something missing. Perhaps I am less a good human being than they. If I was in the military, in the war zone, fearing the insurgents bomb every time I left the base and losing two of my comrades every day ( sorry but it is two not one) then I would come on to a liberal blog in a slightly different frame of mind. When Welshman puts up a diary entitled "When Will We Stop This Bloody Disaster?", I would only have one thing to say to him and I would need all the magnificent armament of Maryscott O'Connor at her imperious finest to say it.
Where are the angry soldiers who resent our resistance to this war? Don't they blog? Are they not allowed by, or are too fearful of, their commanders to come on here and tell us where we can take our liberal doubts? Does the military instruct all its guys that if they are opposed to the pacificist, yellow spined liberals it is naughty to go on a blog and say so? Are these passes in the war zone to blog on the internet only available to a certain type who will show respect to our liberal views and take polite care in their response to our anti-war themes?
Why do we only get the calm. rational ones that make us hesitate and to whom we show such respect for their knowledge and service? Where as well, are the soldiers who agree with us? Those who think Iraq may not be the safe secure place of great friendliness and that our actions are not completely beneficial and want to get the hell out of there? Aren't these the guys we would expect to come on to a liberal blog and express their thoughts with us, whilst the others go to Freeperland and condemn us with foaming at mouth anger from there?
Assuming, as we must, that all our military get the same free passes to do so like our friends quoted above.
You may by now see where I am coming from with all these questions. Look, every one of you are aware of how much blogs are now seen by politicians and the mainstream media as a new an powerful influence on events. You don't need to put a tinfoil hat on to think this might not have escaped the notice of our intelligence services. Nor might you not see it as appropriate for them to try and influence some of the views being expressed on these Pentagon questioning sites..
If I wanted to change your view, I would come on here with all the care that these brave men in Iraq have shown and be extremely careful in not arguing with the likes of Welshmen. I would just give him a few coherent comments which, if they don't change how he thinks, might at least affect the attitude of his readers. If he was too challenging of my comments, then Welshman himself might get banned for discourtesy to our armed upholders of our way of life.
So you see, in writing this, I am not fearful of a midnight knock on the door. I am too old to care. I am fearful that you, the community might turn on me and demand why I am questioning our contributors here from Iraq who are bravely risking their lives for our freedom.
So why bother writing the diary? The answer is because I have not learnt my lesson since my concern for all those lovely people who genuinely would travel four hundred miles to rescue a dog that they had never seen. It is the mothers and partners on here who hang on every word that comes to them out of Iraq. It is for those, and there are many, who respond on here with concern like this comment yesterday:
"Other than that, please tell your friend that he and his fellow Marines are in our thoughts and prayers. And thank him for the terrific opportunity to be informed from the front."
I share that view of that poster but I want to know that my concern is not misdirected and the information that I am getting on here is the truth.
Please don't ban me for expressing my doubts. Reassure me that what I am reading from these guys is an honest account of what is happening in Iraq. Or else tell me and those hanging on to their words and paying undue respect to be careful.
Recommend this diary as an alert to us or pass on bye, but don't throw me off the site.
UPDATE
Oh, gawd! I didn't really expect to be chucked off the site for this diary. It was part literary device, part a reference back to the last time I hesitatingly questioned on a site the validity of certain posts.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR CALDONIA
How real are these guys who come on to our sites from the military in Iraq?
(O.K. Cal? Succinct, enough? :) )