Welcome to readers following up my comments in today’s Sunday Mail article “Iraq Diggers silenced” by Lucy Carne.  You may be interested in my earlier posts on this topic:

Crackdown on MilBlogs? - Thu 21 Sep 2006
2/14 LHR QMI at…

Who makes up these crazy headlines?  “Blogosphere shrinks planet!”  There’s another one.
I met blogger Joel Dullroy (a journalist in Estonia) by doing a small favour for his blogger brother in the Middle East.  It turn…

Three things caught my attention when I saw this image which I rescued from the rubble of Ben’s deleted blog.*  Don’t panic; it’s an officially-sanctioned photo, originally published on defence.gov.au.
Soldiers from the 2nd/14th…

While Ben’s blog may have seemed innocent enough, it wasn’t. There are bad guys over there who want to see the Ben’s of the world stone cold dead or at least out of Iraq so that they can launch further attacks on us at their leisure. He posted pictures that clearly showed how far apart Australian vehicles travel in convoy and he spoke about upcoming patrols and where they were likely to be. Our enemies are masters of the internet and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s) and those two things by themselves may well have placed Ben’s life and those of his mates in deep peril. Yes, it was a soldier’s take on life on the front line and yes it’s a story that needs to be told because Australian soldiers are the best in the world (just read MAJGEN Mike Hindmarsh’s media brief on the SFTG deployment to Afghganistan on the Defence website) and we’re fighting in an honourable and worthwhile cause. It just shouldn’t be told as it’s happening because those who wish him dead will use any and all information they can get their hands on to do just that. Unlike the diaries of former diggers (incidentally, they have never been ‘legal’ and always kept secret), the internet is immediate. When Ben leaves the Army, I hope the diary he writes in his head (or secretly stows away in his trunk) makes its way into the rich tradition of Australia’s war history but in a manner and a time and place that doesn’t put his life at any more risk than it already is. Let’s honour and support these brave young men and women but for God’s sake let’s not give our enemies the information to kill them.

Good point about the need for operational security. Cannot argue with that.

I guess it comes down to what “this type of unauthorised information” is. From my reading, Ben’s blog contained even less operational information than is freely available on defence.gov.au. The main difference is Ben’s was written in the first person and not in PR-speak.

Cheers — Mike

Aside from the issue of operational security (OPSEC) and the threat that OPSEC breaches pose to deployed troops in the field (and I’ll leave that up to theatre commanders to determine, not armchair observers), there is a Defence Instruction on public comment by members of the ADF that expressly forbids this type of unauthorised information being made available in the public domain. This should have been drilled into Ben during his time at ADFA and Duntroon, let alone the media brief he would have received prior to his deployment. That he has wilfully and irresponsibly disobeyed this legal instruction should at the very least have him immediately sent home.

A reasonable standard of review might be just two layers:
1 an operational review at unit level, and
2 a top-level ADF PR review.

It would be a shame to lose Ben’s first-person accounts. They are a valuable slice of Australia’s history. Just look at how letters from Gallipoli are revered by today’s historians.
–Mike

Hoping Ben succeeds,
Craig. Brisbane

I presume by you did this you are talking about Ben’s Iraqi Letters Blog?  I’m guessing that your view on milblogs is that they should be completely banned for reasons of military security.  This is an understandable viewpoint.  There is also the risk that culturally-insensitive material may be published.  I’d like to think that most Aussies are smarter than that, but there’s always one idiot.

It’s my view, however, that Ben’s blog was not a threat to security, nor culturally-insensitive.  Rather, it was extremely positive; it portrayed “the Aussie way” of honesty and openness and was worth more than a million recruiting posters to the ADF.

Clearly there has to be some middle ground here.  Do you have any views on how milblogs should be regulated and/or approved?

Cheers — Mike