Dear JJ and other friends,
JJ, we are not an intelligence agency. We do not gather any information from any user in any group. We are the Public Affairs Team of CENTCOM. We seek to establish dialog with the Internet communities to answer their questions and concerns about CENTCOM’s activities. You are aware that many writings are posted online everyday about CENTCOM and its operations, which are not always completely accurate, and we have an obligation to correct misinformation.
We certainly do provide this information to traditional news organizations, but we do not agree with your assertion that we must limit ourselves to communicating through those media, rather than directly with the public, in an open and honest manner. We view this form of direct communication as an obligation, and have established a presence on a number of online forums, such as Facebook, Maktoob, Al Jazeera Talk, and Iranclubs.
Comparing us to Islamic Revolutionary Guard and Al Qaida is unfair. Al qaeda is a terrorist group, and unlike both these groups, we are a government institution that is accountable to the public.
General McChrystal’s statement was posted here because it was in a very important period of time since the beginning of the war on terror in Afghanistan. We do know that bloggers and readers of this website are Iranians, mostly living the west. However, since Afghanistan is a neighbor of Iran, Iranians might be interested in it as well.
However, if you do not want us to post on your forum, we will respect your wishes.
If the readers want to hear from us in www.iranclubs.org they are welcome.
