This site and company is trying to do national security a whole lot different. There are brick and mortar companies producing airplanes, armored vehicles, ships, guns, you name it. There are also lots of “think-tanks” and other contractors provided high priced talent: PhD’s who haven’t produced anything deployable in decades, retired senior officers sitting on corporate boards, and lots of “suits” (to steal a great term from HBO’s Entourage) billing very expensive rates and putting out some mediocre PowerPoint briefs. And then you have milblogging.
I’ve watched this phenomena evolve and watched its growing importance. Just as regular blogs have had an impact across our society, MilBlogs and milbloggers are now a force to be reckoned with. Just as every person has a unique philosophy, you can’t easily put milbloggers into categories or groupings but I think for the most part they are proud of their service, their loved ones service, and generally do not like it when military people are attacked. This was most recently manifest with the whole New Republic (TNR) fiasco still unfolding regarding an Army Private now known as Scott Thomas Beachamp who wrote three articles for the New Republic under pseudonym.
I thought the points raised by all the milbloggers were spot on but I didn’t have any expertise so I stayed back and watched the ensuing blogswarm. For a publication like TNR to have been (so obviously) taken in by a young soldier and his wife who worked at the magazine, well, this is just the latest scandal affecting our so called elite mainstream media. And it was done in most part, by milbloggers with some assists by some MSM like the Weekly Standard blog. Which brings us to tonight:
Just a few hours ago, President Bush met with milbloggers in the Roosevelt Room and via video teleconference from Iraq. Those attending included the following milbloggers (copied from The Tank at National Review magazine)
I attended the first MilBlogs convention incognito and watched and listened. This year, as I looked at my meager wallet and decided where to spend money “advertising” I decided to be a sponsor at the 2nd MilBlogs convention so ably planned and directed by Andi. I knew that was the right decision. The milbloggers are helping show the way as I wrote about in this post here.
Our government moves too damn slow, it’s too damn hesitant, our military institutions are not creative enough nor are they innovative enough. But slowly, our institutions are responding. I salute the White House for their reaching out to the Blogosphere as the DOD has started with their blog outreach here. To the milbloggers, congratulations!
The world, technology, information processes, …are all changing. Are you ready for it or are you going to wakeup someday and wonder what the heck happened? If you are a government guy or gal, are you satisfied with what you are being given? If not, don’t accept stale mediocre technology, briefings and concepts anymore! Do something about it!