1. What military? The Army is mentioned above. Do you know that these were prepared by a military force, or is that hearsay? Does my question imply the former or the latter? I am just asking clarifying questions. If I knew the answers I wouldn't be asking, would I? Strictly as a point of grammar, you wrote as if it were a sure thing. I was questioning whether attribution to the army was a known fact, or a supposition. I too was asking a clarifying question.
2. These flyers have not been 'distributed on this forum'. Links to another web site have been provided. You sound like Bill Clinton in "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is". Putting links to a website is distributing them on this forum. Please tell me how this is not so. Should I reply by saying you sound like Strom Thurmond? No...we can let the Senators have their fun. Distributing means lots of things, and by law, as well as common sense, referencing another site is not distribution. It certainly is
a means of providing easy access...so you get half a loaf, and your choice of "is" definitions.
3. If these flyers, in physical form, have been distributed in Iraq, then they are certainly in the hands of "the general public" in that country. There would be no reason to think that this is secret material, if it is publically distributed in Iraq. cuchuflete, you have a valid point. If some Iraqi wanted to distribute the flyers, by all means, let it happen. However, it appears from the information thus far that a soldier from the U.S. Army has distributed this information to a buddy. Plain and simple, this stuff has been made public by somebody, so the entire debate is moot. If the US Army wanted some of this material put on car bumpers, that's hardly a sign they considered it sensitive or secret, is it? Passing out pamphlets says that the stuff is intended for widespread civilian consumption.
Should we wait for a Fox News reporter to tell us about it, and how badly translated this stuff is (and badly written?), or see it on Al-Jazeera? What if your tax dollars paid some sub-contractor from Halliburton to write and distribute it on behalf of the US Army? What's the difference? Public is public. Period.
I'm just curious why you asked these questions? If these materials were prepared by the U.S. military forces or so-called coalition forces in Iraq, is there any reason why the text should not be easily available to interested parties, such as the taxpayers who support those military forces? War should be secretive. Too much information leaks out that damages the efforts. I know that at one point reporters were revealing troop locations. Horsefeathers and twaddle! If war should be secretive, why does the US military have "embedded" reporters along for the ride?
If reporters were revealing troop locations, they should be sent home, and if they committed a crime along the way they should be prosecuted. General secretive paranoia doesn't help any war effort. This is material that was designed for public distribution. It's not battle plans and targeting info. GW Bush is still keeping the
WMD facts from us. Is that helping any war effort? Or, is that secrecy weakening public support for the military, and thus damaging their efforts?
Certainly the materials would already be known to any enemies of the Iraqi, US, or coalition military forces. Again, let's err on the side of caution and secrecy. If an enemy wants to gather the information from the flyers and put them on the forum, so be it. But let me ask you this? Do you think the military would approve of a soldier making it easy to access such material? You and I prefer to err differently. The military might have preferred that photos of abuse of prisoners was kept secret. Had it not been revealed, it might be going on today. Win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by that kind of behavior? More likely it creates more insurgents. Secrecy is not always your friend. The military of any nation is never above manipulating the press, especially in wartime. The military may or may not approve of a soldier making publically distributed material available to those who pay for it. According to the US Constitution, they are not supposed to have any political role or position, and as this is not military information, they should have no opinion or policy about the disemination of the material.
(This picture might be disturbing to some. Only click it if you want to.)
