US Military Launches YouTube Channel

Jenga717 writes "The US military has launched its own channel on YouTube, in efforts to shift the media's focus of Iraq from a negative to a more positive light, and to 'counter the messages of anti-American sites.' From the article: 'The footage is not picked specifically to show the military in a good light ... and is only edited for reasons of time or content too graphic to be shown on YouTube ... And while all the clips currently posted have been shot by the military's combat cameramen, soldiers and marines have been invited to submit their own clips.' The question is, where are they supposed to submit them? Starting 'on or about 14 May 2007', the Department of Defense will block troop access to Myspace, Youtube, MTV, and more sites, due to a 'growing concern for our unclassified DoD Internet, known as the NIPRNET'." More commentary below. The troops will be unable to access these sites from any computer on the DoD network, yet are still able to access them from their home computers — which they can't use on the DoD network. So why the censorship? The DoD cites security reasons, but the Commander of Global Network Operations (DoD's Joint Task Force)"has noted a significant increase in the use of DoD network resources tied up by individuals visiting certain recreational Internet sites." The PDF released by the DoD reminds troops that this "benefits not only you, your fellow Servicemembers, and Civilian employees, but preserves our vital networks for conducting official DoD business in peace and war." Sounds like quite a sticky situation."

Comments

Re:War Crimes Clips

[chuckymonkey]

Here, let me help you out a little. I happen to know the guys from the apache farmer video. Think about it for a second, it's night....late at night. How many people do you know work on farm equipment in the dark late at night? Also when we went out there after all of this you know what we found? Oh, wow missiles and rockets, the only reason that they didn't shoot at the Apache is that they didn't know where it was. When you can't tell the enemy from the guys that aren't the enemy bad shit happens. No, it's not right but it happens, just because you didn't hear about it in other wars doesn't mean that it doesn't happen either. Oh, and blowing up a Mosque we only do when there is good reason (think bombs) to do so. You're going to believe what you're going to believe no matter what someone tells you, but everything you see on Youtube and the TV isn't necessarily what the person showing it to you tells you it is. Also before you go waving around the Geneva convention about shit you may want to read it, I remember reading somewhere that if the enemy doesn't follow it you don't have to either and I do remember some videos of people having their head sawed off among other things. I feel for the Iraqis, as did most of my compatriots in Iraq but it's not our fault if shit happens... we cannot I repeat cannot tell the difference between the enemy from the innocents so some innocents do get caught in the crossfire. How about you blame the suits who put us there in the first place? I sure as hell didn't want to go and most people in the military are not the bloodthirsty sick fucks you seem to think we are. That's why I got out of the military, I saw way too much and couldn't stand the thought of my little girl never knowing who her daddy was. Nor could I stand to see another little girl dead in the street because some asshole decided to start shooting and grabber her to use as a shield. That made me equal parts angry and sick, I actually vomited when it was over and sometimes I have nightmare because of it. Oh, but you don't see those videos do you?! You also don't see the videos of the guys walking into a crowd of schoolchildren and then setting off a bomb hoping to get one or two soldiers do you? No, because you want to fervently to believe that the soldiers in the service are bloodthirsty animals to soothe your conscience for some strange reason. So you sir can fuck off and maybe try to get your facts straight.