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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."
Isn't that called "propaganda"?
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
the whole bit about footage too graphic for you tube... well by its very nature that is what puts the military in a bad light. sounds like propaganda to me.
on another note... I'm in the air force, and for quite some time the base network has blocked access to the following (though some of the blocks have since been rescinded):
1.e-bay
2.something awful
3.any flash content
4.any URL with the word "game" in it
5.any URL with the word "forum" in it
6.countless other harmless sites that don't come to mind right now
Here is a nice video from the good american army educating the Iraqi population?
Is that the kind of classified information we should not allow the marines to post?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6c4_1176720508&p=1
John Vai
The abuses are isolated. The enlisted men that are honestly "good guys" trying to to good in a bad situation are many and plenty. The crap reasons that we're over there is another story but the everyday soldiers bearing the brunt of it take it really well and do a lot of good. I agree its a fubar situation but the average enlisted guy dealing with it over there is doing a damn fine job.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
I would say it is safe to say that the number of soldiers handing out candy and flowers vastly outnumbers the numbers that are stacking up naked Iraqi's in pyramids.
Personally, I am sympathetic to the idea. Not every soldier that goes to Iraq raps a few women and then guns down some kids. Hell, the entire 'surge' is based around the idea of sacrificing more Americans to save more Iraqis. Right now US soldiers are setting practically undefended in outposts all over Baghdad instead of turtling up in their bases and air striking anything that looks threatening. The point of the shift in strategy was basically to put Americans more in the line of fire and restrain the force they can use so that fewer civilians die. They are focusing on civilian protection instead of force protection.
I don't think people fully realize what this means. We KNOW that more soldiers will die as we expose them in an effort to defend the civilian population. I am sympathetic that the army is a tad irritated at being called baby killers while everyone ignores the fact that they are paying in American blood to reduce civilian casualties inflicted by both collateral damage and intentional terrorist/sectarian attacks.
Now, it can certainly be argued that this is a complete waste of American lives. It can certainly be argued that we would be better off to saying we are sorry for kicking over their iron fisted dictator that kept them you line, write out a big check, and tell them good luck on not committing genocide against each other. That said, give the army some credit. They are being told to pay in their own blood to achieve some political objective. If they want to show that they do more then gun down civilians, let them. God forbid anything other then tragedy be reported from Iraq.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams: 'Anyone who wants a position of authority should under no circumstances be allowed to do the job'
FGD 135
"Or the Apache killing these unarmed men in a farmers field, working on a tractor."
e r_shot_wounded_Iraqi_at_Fallujah_in_self_defense
I notice you selected the SNIPPED version. Here's a link to the full version.
Watch old boy play "hide the SA7", using his buddies and their equipment as cover. Note the whole interaction between the people, including the initial conversation by the car and the rapid ditching of the weapon in the field. I contemptuously defy anyone to link these behaviors to tractor repair. I work on ag equipment and tractors, and there is nothing among my parts stash or tool collection that is the size and shape of a handheld SAM tube. That is no grain drill section (note the dangling end cap when he runs), PTO shaft, or similar.
http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/001763.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wdJo-eoLxI (search 'helicopter kills" and compare versions)
"Or executing a wounded Iraqi"
How would/do/have YOU act/acted when you suspect(ed) an enemy fighter may be "playing possum"?
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._Navy_finds_soldi
"A known tactic of anti-Iraqi forces (AIF) is to feign injury or death, and the marine could reasonably claim they were still a threat."
"Blowing up Mosque's doesn't look so good either."
Nor does using them for military purposes, which removes their protected status under the GC.
"Or this apparent murder of civilians driving by in their cars."
All we have is a "stovepiped" view from a cam, with no overall context as to what actions were taking place nearby. Note the cameraman, "Doc" comments that no unarmed people were harmed, and he would probably have been in a position to view the cleanup. Those vehicles could have done a driveby or similar off-camera, but we don't know either way.
"The famous "Awe Dude" air-strike on a crowd of civilians."
Post-strike assertions go both ways, but the ground controller called it in during the ground battle.
What did he see that we didn't?
All we see from the video is a group of people moving purposefully in one general direction.
Ideology-based conjecture is not proof.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I am one of the troops and believe me there really are people who are still anti-troops. Some people do still freak out when we try to do normal everyday things. I've been called freak, monster, murderer, nazi, and baby killer. Now I'm not saying a large portion of the population is anti-troops; for the most part people can separate between the war and the troops.
And it's no surprise that DOD will be uniformly blocking access to these sites, for several years it has been specifically forbidden by the regs to us DOD computers for personal use. By most accounts, Myspace, YouTube, and the like are all for personal use. In fact many bases already block these sites on their networks. And it isn't censorship either. The government is paying for that bandwidth for official use only. We can't have our networks go down because too many people are trying to read their personal e-mail or post videos online, for the military this is our job, this is what we do every day.
There are plenty of sources of information that the military can't spin. If we want to we can post on Myspace or YouTube from our personal machines. If you're in the desert then you can visit those sites from the computers in the MWR center (Morale, Welfare, Recreation Center) or from the internet cafe if the base has one.