I'm thinking that what these guidelines don't say is far more revealing.

How can any nation know what is being sent inside a sealed envelope or package? Why, they open it and look, that's how.

What the USPS ought to be saying is this:

"When sending any letter or package to an islamic state, understand that these nations are typically fascist police states and all mail is likely to be opened and inspected. With that consideration do not send the following materials as they are likely to result with the recipient being arrested, beaten and possibly murdered by the regime."

When you mail to an APO it goes military transport.

The foreign government folks DON'T inspect it.

However if we have a signed agreement with said country, it may include the above restrictions and being a lawful nation, of sorts, we feel obliged to honor those agreements.

This is NOTHING NEW. Get over it.

And I agree with jim m if mailing to civilians.

My bad. I didn't follow the link to see that the USPS was talking about mail to the military.

That being the case I would agree with epador, but my statement still stands for other mail.

This is nothing to get excited about. International mail agreements are the likely source of this. The reimbursement of postal fees for delivery to another country is a convoluted and crazy thing (google it).

Another dumb post derived from ignorance of military matters.

International mail agreements are the likely source of this.

No, these are from Central Command (CENTCOM) regulations of the military postal system, not USPS-originated. They do not apply to non-APO addresses.

The military postal restrictions are derived from CENTCOM General Order 1B and subordinate unit's regulations.

Examples:

http://www.tac.usace.army.mil/deploymentcenter/tac_docs/GO-1B%20Policy.pdf

http://bobmccarty.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/MND-N-GO1-4NOV09.pdf

The ban on large amounts of religious materials dates from the first Gulf War, when Christian fundies were shipping large amounts of bibles and tracts in Arabic to troops in Saudi Arabia. It was decided by Gen. Schwarzkopf that troops proselytizing did not advance the military objectives of the United States.

John,

Islamic nations have something called "sovereignty", which means that they have the authority to regulate whatever enters their borders. I think it's absurd that you don't recognize the sovereignty of said nations.

Having served In Desert Storm and helping out in the mailroom there's a very simple answer to this: If we don't regulate what gets sent into THEIR country, THEY will. They don't have to let anything into their country that they don't want to.

It's like asking who we think we are trying to stop marijuana or other illegal drugs across the Mexican border. What some people find normal, we find unacceptable.

Hearts and minds, John, hearts and minds.

Yes, their laws are stupid, and sometimes worse.

But we're not just there to blow people up --- we're there to achieve political objectives.

And it's much, much easier to achieve our political objectives when we're at least paying lip service to the local customs, however silly we think they are.

I'd also point out that we have our own ludicrously silly laws. Examples:

(1) It's illegal to mail a bottle of wine across state lines, even if you're sending it as a thoughtful birthday gift to a friend.

(2) It's illegal to mail your dad a new glock, although you could mail it to yourself at his house, open the package yourself, and then present him with his fine gift, if I understand the silly laws correctly

(3) It's apparently go-to-jail and register-for-life illegal for your girlfriend to send you a naughty picture of herself, if you're both in high school.

(4) It's illegal to mail your brother a box of fine cigars, even when congratulating him on the birth of your first nephew.

Let's get the 2x4s out of our own eyes...