A Response to the Call for Civility in the Blogosphere: House Rules

The Spy Who Billed Me is adopting house rules to better enhance dialog and free and open discussions on this blog.  I've had bad behavior here before and have been personally threatened in email.  For the first time this week, I was called names in a comment in this blog.  It called the larger question of what is acceptable behavior here.

This blog sits in the nexus of a revolution in how America fights her wars, both conventional and covert, and it is the only blog on this topic.  Because of the histrionics of a recent book about Blackwater, this has become a very charged territory.  I believe that an open discussion on this topic and other topics covered by The Spy Who Billed Me is important enough to take early action and establish some house rules so that this discussion can continue here without devolving into some of the hyper-aggressive language that is far too common on other parts of the internet.  With few exceptions, my readers and commenters are a great group.  This is intended with an eye toward the future rather than to fix a problem in the present.

Internet publisher Tim O'Reilly along with Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has recently called for bloggers to adopt a code of civility to put an end to cyber-bullying and the rude, boorish behavior that so often occurs in the highly charged, politicized blogosphere where the anonymity of the web often makes people feel they have license to attack others, call them names and shut down discussion through bad behavior.  O'Reilly made an excellent point to the New York Times:

“That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”

I agree.

This is a non-partisan blog and I don't care what your politics are, as long as you don't preach some form of hate on my site.  And for those of you trying to pin me down politically, suffice it to say I hold my nose when I vote.

Some sites are moving to ban anonymous comments.  The Spy Who Billed Me is not one of them.  Because this blog is about national security, it has regular readers  from the CIA, private intel and military corporations, the Pentagon, State, Homeland Security, the NAVSPECWAR community and others who are not in positions to publicly identify themselves.  I respect this.  And I've had a lot of SEALs pile though here and when they do, everything gets wet. 

So here are the house rules, subject to change and improvement as we see how they work out.  Violators of house rules may have their comments deleted.  Repeat violators may find their IPs banned.

1.  Be civil.

2.  No spoofing. Zero tolerance here for fake SEALs or other imposters.   

3.  All political opinions are welcome.  The exception here are expressions thereof that cross the line of civility or anything that promotes hate.

4.  Anything that could infringe upon operational security of an ongoing military or intelligence operation and/or whose disclosure could endanger lives will be deleted.

 

So what name was I called that prompted this?  A "corporate neo-con."  Does it violate these rules?  If it's any hint, when I received an email warning,"I destroy my enemies," from someone with a rather deadly skill set, my first reaction was "talk dirty to me." 

The comment was not deleted.  It was too damn funny.

Comments

[secured email]

So where is the comment?

[R J Hillhouse]

Under comments in this item: http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/04/blackwater_on_b.html Sorry this is no Permalink directly to it.

As I said, it called the question. I wasn't offended.

[Kenneth del Valle]

I worked from 1968 to 1984.

I was in the Navy from 1964 to 1968.

While in the Navy I did a couple of tours in Viet Nam. After Nam I went to Angola and went on from there.

I eventually quit the job because I invested my earning in my education and earned a law degree in 1980.

My last job was in 1984. By then I was making more as an attorney than any job was worth.

Can't see people in the business arguing with each other.

Politics should be meaningless to us. Go to enough private wars and politics becomes irrelevant.
We fight for money, not for glory and not for patriotism.

You want patriotism, stay in the regular service.

Our work is just business!

The only rule back then was don't cross the CIA. They were the source of much employment. Once, they turned the world upside down to get me out. I have nothing bad to say about them.

Back then the job was full of opportunities. From the black market sale of medical supplies to cross border bank heists.
Knew a couple of guys that stole an airplane and sold it.

Today, it seems everybody is a corporate employee with great restrictions placed upon intitiative and with rules of engagement that make it difficult to get the job done.

Altough we had no rules we had common sense and I seldom saw any abuse of power from the pros. We all knew that abuse is counter productive. However, let me assure you we were ruthless when the situation demanded it.

Most of us had read Mao's Little Red Book and Sun Tzu and Musashi's Five Rings and Machavelli and Clausawitz, etc. We could all do night navigation and swim and run for hours. Everyone knew demo and sniping was such a common skill no one bothered talking about it.

Yet no one was a jock. We were all flacid from time in the field. None of the guys I remember could have undergone one week of hell week that the modern special forces are subjected to. We all smoked! Luckys and Camels. We were all out of shape. But we could fight and fight smart!

Slept outdoors a lot!

We seldom had back up, or arty or air, so we were very careful about starting fights we couldn't finish.

Also, back then we avoided the Ninja syndrome. In towns we dressed as poor civilians as often as possible. Always bought local clothes. Specially shoes. Shoes will give away an American faster than anything. Uniforms were for the field.

We banked our earnings off shore.

I went to undergraduate school in a foreign country to keep myself and my work off the radar screen and to stay clear of the law.

Back then there were no merc companies. Just guys who knew who was hiring. Also, it was the COLD WAR so there was always work.

I hope you all do well! Just be smart about your work and remember that your first priority is to make it home. Second priority is to make it home with plenty of loot.

You can't do it forever! So invest your earnings in your future!

Good luck to all of you!