RE: couldn't resist sharing

["David Harley" <david.a.harley () gmail com>]

>  bah!  Let the soldiers sell their stories, it doesn't really 
> matter in the long run they might as well make a buck or two 
> off of the whole thing....

In the abstract, maybe. The main reason it's an issue as far as the UK is
concerned is that UK services personnel aren't normally allowed to sell
their stories. I've never explored the issue, but I guess there are all
sorts of reasons for that: PR (divergence from an official line), security
(inadvertent intel leakage), effect on morale in a conflict situation where
you know one of your mates might be selling a story about you in the future,
and so on. So there's another morale issue: "How come they get to make money
out of behaving rationally [and very possibly in conformance with rules of
engagement, not that I'd know anything about that] but unheroically, whereas
other people who similarly carry on with their jobs as best they can aren't
allowed to?" Even worse, this happened at almost the same time as the latest
of a series of incidents resulting in the deaths of UK personnel:
comparisons were drawn that may or may not have been fair, but did cause
extra grief to the relatives of those who died. 

I don't know why an exception was made in this case. I suspect that it had
to do with  letting the personnel concerned put the record straight (1) in
the face of "friendly fire" from the gung-ho brigade (2) in the face of the
Iranian version of how the incident happened and how the prisoners were
treated. My guess is that someone felt that if they were allowed to tell
their own stories in detail, Iranian claims that they were being ordered to
lie  by their superiors would carry less weight, and that Iran's public
image would take a further dent. 

-- 
David Harley 
AVIEN Guide to Malware:
http://www.smallblue-greenworld.co.uk/pages/avienguide.html
New botnet book: http://www.syngress.com/catalog/?pid=4270
Security Bibliography:
http://www.smallblue-greenworld.co.uk/pages/bibliography.html
Articles: http://watersidesyndication.com/inbusiness/;
http://dharley.wordpress.com/
 

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