And how do you know how they are being treated? Or are you simply speculating?

As to the penny... no, but if you squint your eyes you may see your credibility waning.

Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?

There there... no more big thoughts for you today... you've done enough.

I don't think the troops would like you calling them rabbits.

It's like your not even trying anymore...

The troops are trying very hard, why are you being so rude to them?

What's the matter don't you like your own medicine?

Yeah, right!

That's so weird. Public complaints about the policies of their superiors is such a career-enhancing medium for change in the military.

Did that rabbit just read the Gaudian?

The Grauniad [sic] has some good writers, but has a tendency to pontificate. It is the unlikely broadsheet [no longer technically true] equivalent to the Daily Mail, in terms of pompous preaching. All the more unlikely as they occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Despite my own left-wing sympathies, I tend to read The Times, as it is a bit more entertaining. For actual information? Look to as many sources as possible, would be my advice. And then take a large pinch of salt, with a good dose of common sense.

Hope you have got your rabbit disaster policy.

Obviously a foreigner! Here's how we do things in the US of A: Pick a source that most matches your preconceived notions, and believe everything you see or hear on/in it.

The troops who are supposedly out there to win the foreigners over. Well, they’re not foreigners. They live there.  They’re not insurgents neither; they’re resistance movements.  But anyway, the troops that are supposedly out there to win the foreigners over, are not allowed to read the very newspaper that has been exposing the lies their government have been telling them about the war. If any one should read the the Gaussian and know the truth, it is the troops. After all they the the ones doing the fighting. The public can read all about it, so why can't the troops? It's not as though their government have banned an odd article but have banned the whole newspaper. Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of the story etcetera. How many other things will they ban by the same token? First Poland next the Magic Café.

I'd probably send them the New Statesman, Tommy, although I wouldn't want them to be preached to death, along with the Economist and The Financial Times.

As I'm sure you know, squaddies are quite capable of adding two to two when they want to.

They are not allowed to use their government computers to access those sites, but they can access them with their personal computers. Just like if you are using school computers, or work computers there are some sites blocked.

There is nothing to stop them from going to a site once off duty. However they do have access to sites such as this.

Good, for a moment there I thought they had been entirely chained up in "Plato's Cave." 

As a 20+ year military member I can tell you first hand we're all use to limited access on government computers. Though we were surprised some time back tat some bases allow access to Facebook. We deal with it no use to complain. Won't change, peg you as a troublemaker and, as mentioned, if we have a burning desire to read The Guardian, we'll do it at home.

Regarding the rest of the ranting in here..,US military served the as the discretion of elected officials. We are not mindless servants who are cannon fodder. We are the best trained, best equipped fighting force in the history if the world. And we live by the oathes we take to support and defend theConstitution. As I've heard numerous times in the service "We fight for democracy, but we ain't one." This was usually followed by an order to get back to scrubbing a latrine.

So like so many other threads we military folk will read it, chuckle a bit and smile, then go back to providing the blanket of freedom for all to enjoy...

I've always heard "We are the defenders of Democracy; not the practitioners."