Letter From Iraq

Hi Momma,

We pick up newspapers and flyers and take pictures of posters and graffiti while we are in sector. It's a good way to gauge the attitudes of the people there and to keep an eye on what the other side is putting out in the way of information operations.

Last week we picked up a newspaper and had it translated. Here are some of the articles:

"Our paper gives you a brief of the activities of the (freedom fighters) which struggles against the occupation for the sake of liberating our country."

This headline is followed by a list of attacks and people killed, both from the Coalition, as well as Iraqi Security Forces (because they work with us.)

"Sheikh Hamza Abbas Mansur, General Secretary of the Islamic Labor Party in Jordan says, 'The American bases in the region are fences to protect Israel.'"

"A new survey! The Americans believe that Bush cheated them about Iraq."

"US occupation Army is on the edge of collapse, US occupation Army is short of soldiers because of the current military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, US soldiers suffering from stress. US occupation Army confesses that attacks have increased [in Iraq] this year. John Kerry says, "our soldiers need a new strategy to draw themselves out of Iraq."

Way to go, John Kerry. What does it say that people who are comfortable detonating car bombs in front of a public market are comfortable quoting you in support of their cause? I'm not saying this quote was even meant in any harmful way. It sounds relatively harmless when not placed next to the rest of the stories in this paper. You just figure, hey, freedom of speech-right? I just wonder (as many soldiers do) if anyone who says anything in the United States realizes that their voice does not stay in the United States.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, but with every right there is a responsibility; and in this case it is our responsibility to understand that when we speak in the US, it is heard around the world. Foreign intelligence services (especially terrorist groups) get the vast majority of their intelligence from open (unclassified) sources: the internet, media, documents released under freedom of information act. If you logged onto a computer knowing nothing about the US Army, you could walk away knowing its history, traditions, rules and regulations, size, equipment, standard operating procedures, hell--you can look up the rules on how we interrogate now- -all without breaking a single law.

You could find out how many troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, their locations, and names and ranks (all deployment orders are published under the Freedom of Information Act.) You could find out which unit was coming to replace them, and about what month they were coming, what equipment they were bringing and if they had any combat experience or if they were relatively "green."

You could also find out what the American public thought of the deployment, what the politicians were saying and what different polling places thought it would take to "get the troops home."

Now, imagine that you are a terrorist. You could get the specs on, say, a uparmored truck. See what kind of explosive you would need to penetrate the armor of that truck and where to detonate it for maximum damage.

You could do all of this with the knowledge that a bunch of infidel American politicians think that the American public is not willing to keep their troops in Iraq because of the number of casualties. I would know that every soldier I kill is eroding public support for the war in the United States (or in terrorist lingo: the great Satan.)

This knowledge would not make me less likely to kill soldiers. It would make me want to kill as many as I can as quickly as I can.

People think that freedom of speech means they get to say whatever they want, damn the consequences. Freedom of speech means that the world knows our thoughts, our doubts, and our secrets. It means that, because we have "permission" to say what we want, we need to be more careful about the things we say.

People without this freedom are afraid to say what they think because of what their government will do to them. People with this freedom should be afraid of what they say because of what others may do to their government.

So, I am going away for a couple weeks again. I have to go to forward observation base Falcon for a big to-do. Watch the news this week and you'll see what for.

Love,

From a daughter serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq.