Update: My War, Over and Out

LitBlogs ^ | Sunday, August 29, 2004 | Mick Arran Central

[tricky_k_1972]

Those of you who began reading this blog with my review of CBFTW's My War--Fear and Loathing in Iraq (CBFTW is a Hunter Thompson fan) and got thoroughly hooked on it in the days and weeks afterward most likely already know this, but for those of you who may be tuning in late, My War has been shut down--maybe by CBFTW himself, but maybe by the Army, and for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Ron Brynaert at Why Are We Back in Iraq? has done a nice job summarizing the story, some of which I didn't know.

One day he posted a story which claimed that he just fought a battle with Al Qaeda...bad enough...but he also claimed (mostly based upon the word of one of his Commanding Officers) that the enemies were Al Qaeda that had come into Iraq from Iran.

That seems to have been the beginning of his difficulties (although Ron mentions that right-wing commenters had begun using My War as a platform for supporting the SGW and attacking anyone who didn't or whose support was less than enthusiastic), though why it should have been is a mystery. The battle was reported in the press, as was the participation of AQ which came straight from official Army statements; C was merely repeating what we already knew. The Army also didn't seem to have a problem with it since they left it up. They did, however, decide that from then on they wanted to see what he wrote before he posted it. And they wanted some changes.

The first noticable change was that the title was shortened to "My War." I guess the Military don't do irony. Then he started to become annoyed with the myriad of posters on his blog. He was trying to sanitize his site for the brass...but posters were copy-and-pasting and resubmitting some of his posts.

Snip-------

Then he became famous.

He began getting write-ups here and there throughout the land. One day, the Wall Street Journal ran a story which carried his name, and while it didn't mention his blog, it pretty much told the same story as one of his posts (I'm not going to give the exact link...because his name is in it). Then NPR ran a piece on him. Yet, they (stupidly...though they later corrected it by deleting it) made a direct connection to his name and blog.

On August 19th, CB's only post was the text to the 1st Amendment, which created a ton of wild speculation. He returned briefly to the blog warning his fans again not to copy-and-paste. But most wouldn't listen.

There's more to this story (read Ron's whole post) but that, I think, is the heart of it.

[tricky_k_1972]

Those of you that have read the blog "MY WAR: FEAR AND LOATHING IN IRAQ" might or might not enjoy the full article. It gives the author of LitBlogs insight into why the Military might have shut him down, or why he may have done it himself.

[JerseyHighlander]

Thanks for the updated, was surely as disappointed as al his other fans when I visted his blog and it was taken offline.

For those who want to read his entries up to the end of July, I have it archived, freepamil me if interested.

Cannoneer No. 4, thank you for turning me on to this blog, it was truly an incredible view, strong viewpoint from inside the sandbox, inside a war zone, not seen by my generation (of 20-somethings) before. Hopefully the hints CBFTW wrote of about having people wanting to publish his journal will work out, that book will be on my bookshelf for the rest of my life.