I was responding to R22Reg's attempt to shut down people trying to express an opinion on a website that was specifically created to enable members of the CF to express opinions that the rules of conduct of their job prevent them from expressing elsewhere.
Well, you want to be careful about that.
This site (and Facebook, and MySpace, etc etc) is not the mess. It's not private, no matter how much it might seem to be "just us chickens"
This is a public site; anybody can come by and read whatever is posted here. Anything you post on the Internet is functionally identical to a posted letter to the editor in the Globe and Mail - perhaps even worse, because this site specifically identifies itself as being associated (however informally) with the Canadian Forces.
Increasingly, sites like these *are* the public face of the CF (much, I suspect, to the consternation of Public Affairs Officers everywhere)
As such, it behooves those of us still serving to keep control of whatever partisan opinions we may or may not hold; it really is part of our sworn duty.
I feel - and share - the frustration that we as an institution don't seem to be communicating what the mission is about and how well we are doing it back to the public at large. I actually see it as a form of information warfare - the bad guys seek to undermine public support for our operations, because they know that any democratic society will withdraw its troops once public support drops too low. We need to be able to counter these operations, every bit as much as we counter IEDs or any other military tactic. If I Were CDS (TM) I'd seriously consider increasing the size of the PA branch and start thinking about writing doctrine that treats PA as a defensive tactical weapon.
But I also note that I'm seeing signs that while we may not be getting the truth of the mission out very well, we *do* seem to be getting the truth that we can't get the truth of the mission out through. The lead article on Canoe.ca today on the return of troops back to Edmonton had a series of quotes from Gen. Grant on that very subject.
In any case though, we need to refrain from straying into partisan waters. Firstly, because it is our duty. Secondly, be cause it is in our own self-interest to do so. And thirdly....
....I worked in the US for ten years. I soaked in US politics for a decade. And let me tell you, Canadian politics at its worst is US politics on a good day. I don't want to see my country go down that road. I don't want to see a political climate in Canada where lowlifes like Anne Coulter can thrive and flourish.
DG