“A newspaper has noticed that several US media have published identical letters from soldiers based in Iraq but which are signed by different people. And many of the letters have already been published in US newspapers.

The latest case of so-called ‘astroturf’ is reminiscent of a story we broke in January – Google hunts down ‘President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership’. It transpired then that the Republican Party was behind the ‘astroturf’.

According to The Olympian, it received two identical letters from different soldiers in the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, but on doing a news search discovered identical letters in 11 different newspapers. The letters paint a positive picture about how Iraq is returning to normal. But according to the Olympian, polls show that support for the war is dropping in the USA.

On investigation, the newspaper discovered that the soldiers named in the letters do exist, but the individuals don’t know why the letters were sent under their names to a number of newspapers. One squaddie didn’t find out about the letter until his father read a letter signed by his son in his local West Virginian newspaper.” —The Inquirer [not The Enquirer] [via Dave Farber’s Interesting People mailing list] How high up in the dysadministration or the Republican Party do you think the instigation to do this goes?