On August 30, a new diarist named Citizen Steely Tom, representing himself as a soldier about to return from Iraq, posted a long and carefully composed up-tempo appraisal of US nation-building and counterinsurgency work in Iraq (Thoughts from Iraq). CST's diary is suspect as DoD astroturf for the following reasons:
1. Unlike the many personal accounts posted by (presumably) real soldiers in Iraq, CST's diary reads like a corporate memo. Here is an excerpt:
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As more peaceful provicences in the South are handed off, the increased presence of U.S. forces in the heart of the insurgency will allow the Iraqi Police and IA units there time enough to mature, grow strong and win five years from now. We are already experiencing great successes in waging counter-insurgency warfare and have adapted quickly to the threats invovled. Being creative with the resources already committed is the next step.
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Note the embedded corpocratic think-positive slogans "We are already experiencing great successes in waging counter-insurgency warfare" and "Being creative with the resources already committed"
2. There are no personal observations, eccentricities, or traces of a human being relating actual experience. All humanizing identifying marks have been scrubbed off.
3. There is a show of hostility toward those who have made bungled decisions and the suggestion that CST will vote against the current administration, but the message of the diary is that we absolutely must stay in Iraq until we "win." Curiously, this is exactly the position of the current administration.
4. The fundamental tactic of CST is to cut off contemplation of the past and to look rigidly ahead, asserting that this is the only constructive approach to an occupation in which we have nothing but obligated chess moves and no choice but to press on. This is reminiscent of the ominous "You must continue" mantra of Dr. Millgram's horrible experiment.
5. The message of the diary is that things were bad before but the new strategy is working. This is directly contradicted by evidence of increasing attacks on US forces and increasing civil violence in Iraq.
In summary, it appears that the scope of DoD-sponsored astroturfing now encompasses dKos. Should we take this as a compliment? I don't know which is scarier: the possibility that the DoD PR people haven't read the Cluetrain Manifesto or the possibility that an actual US soldier thinks this way.