We've seen a lot of soldiers' letters quoted in connection with the Iraq War. The armed forces paper Stars and Stripes prints soldiers' letters, some of them surprisingly blunt in their criticisms of current policy. And I think that soldiers' letters, when vetted according to normal journalistic standards, have added a lot to the discussion.
But I've also noticed that quoting anonymous soldiers' letters has also been a favorite device on rightwing Web sites. Our friend Chuckie (CHARLIE DANIELS), the Regnery Press political hack, has provided us a couple of examples here and here. At those sites, the soldiers' letters are presented as being the real view that we don't get from the sinister Liberal Media.
One of my concerns about this is that some unscrupulous Pentagon public relations genius might decide to get systematic about generating soldiers' letters that happen to be favorable to Administration policy by bringing improper pressure on soldiers to write them. A recent revelation about some such orchestration of soldiers' letters has increased my concern.
An article from the The Olympian (Washington) describes the spate of form letters signed by soldiers in Iraq. USA Today has also reported on it. Hesiod has commented on this at some length here and here, with other articles linked. Josh Marshall has also commented here and here. Joe Conason also has his suspicions.
The lesson of this is: read the news with a critical mind.
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