Medary.com

Wired has a story on warbloggers, documenting the Iraq war in realtime from the front:

Milbloggers constitute a rich subculture with a refreshing candor about the war, expressing views ranging from far right to far left. They also offer helpful tips about tearing down an M16, recipes for beef stew (hint: lots of red wine), reviews of the latest episode of 24, extremely technical discussions of Humvee armor configurations, and exceptionally raw accounts of field hospital chaos, gore, and heroism.

For now, the Pentagon officially tolerates this free-form online journalism and in-house peanut gallery, even as the brass takes cautious steps to control it. A new policy instituted this spring requires all military bloggers inside Iraq to register with their units. It directs commanders to conduct quarterly reviews to make sure bloggers aren't giving out casualty information or violating operational security or privacy rules. Commanding officers shut down a blog that reported on the medical response to a suicide bombing late last year in Mosul. The Army has also created the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell to monitor compliance. And Wired has learned that a Pentagon review is under way to better understand the overall implications of blogging and other Internet communications in combat zones.

A sample of a warblogger, thunder6, who was mentioned in the Wired story:

Have you ever stopped to think about who the insurgents really are? Or about what their final goal really is? Do you think for a moment that they are fighting for freedom? For their people? Have you ever wondered why foreign jihadists are trickling into Iraq to attack our forces? In case you have been living under a rock for the last several years I will spell it out for you in as clear a fashion as I am able. The insurgents are composed of two primary groups. The first is composed of former Baath Party member who long to once again crush their populace for their own personal gain. The second group is inhabited by jihadists whose malignant form of Islam calls for the destruction of anything counter to their backwards ideology. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not bashing the whole of Islam. I’m referring to a small but virulent subset of the religion that is bent on imposing their draconian will on others. That is the face of our enemy, and you would be a fool to think that leaving that plague unchecked would bring anything except disaster.

Perhaps Cindy Sheehan should be asking to meet with him rather than with the President?

Via Reason Hit and Run.