Copyright 2011 by John T. Reed
A week or so ago a reader or would-be reader sent me a screen shot of a message that said my Web site was blocked because of an Army Regulation and Joint Task Force rule. He was trying to access my site from a Defense Department computer. A day or so later, another department of defense guy said he had no trouble accessing my site. Now I am told it is blocked if you are using a West Point computer at West Point and possibly for all Department of Defense computers.
To a writer, this sort of thing is like being “Banned in Boston” was decades ago. I have always gotten a lot of chuckles from the machinations of the military bureaucracy, however, in this case, I am wondering what the occasion is.
About all I have done recently is put up a couple of new articles on the bin Laden killing. Their main connection to the Army is my expressing consternation that the Navy handled a land operation 900 miles from the ocean instead of the Army or Air Force.
Come to think of it, an Army guy putting down the Navy was what caused the only incidence of high ranking moral courage in Army history. Army Air Corps pilot General Billy Mitchell said a plane could sink a war ship and that the Navy had screwed up big time on a sea plane flight from CA to HI and a Navy blimp crash. He was court martialed, forced to retire, died, and later got many posthumous honors like the World War II B-25 bomber and the Air Force Academy mess hall being named after him. They also issued a stamp of him in 1999.
I expect that this rash of censoring me by the military, if true, will only heighten interest and people can easily just use another entry point to the web like Starbucks or a friend’s home computer or laptop. So what is the point?
Ah, why am I asking? It’s the SNAFU military. What’s the point of the Navy SEALs having to swim with their wrists and ankles tied? What’s the point of the rangers if the SEALs are going to do the land special ops?
Memo to those in the military or working for it as civilians: Illegitimi non Carborundum
