Soldiers Uploading Iraq Footage To Youtube

[oberliner]

Wonder what people's thoughts are on this. Is it a good way to get the word out on what is really going on? Has anyone who has seen these videos have any perceptions to share?

Soldiers Uploading Iraq Footage To Youtube

Because of heightened security concerns, American television reporters may be experiencing more difficulty than ever in covering the hostilities in Iraq, but pictures of the mayhem taken both by American soldiers and Iraqi insurgents are turning up on such websites as YouTube.com, MySpace, and Ogrish. Citing a soldier who served in Iraq in 2005, the BBC reported Wednesday that the Pentagon, using civilian contractors, is closely monitoring the online videos, which, it said, now number in the hundreds of thousands. One military public affairs officer in Iraq told the BBC, "There's continuing concern about the use of these videos and stills being used by our enemies to propagate the false notion that our military members are barbaric, warmongers -- which is unequivocally not the case. And... many of these videos and photos can harm force protection and operational security measures." Hayden Hewitt, co-owner of Ogrish.com, commented that the main reason why soldiers have posted video clips to his site is that "they just want people to know what they have been through."


http://imdb.com/news/sb/2006-08-03/

[stellanoir]

1. G-d forbid anyone ever see what is really happening. . .

[cynatnite]

2. Sounds like they're trying to get the word out...

The good, the bad and the ugly of it. While I hope they don't compromise themselves in the process, I do hope they continue and sites that host these videos will support this effort.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. If the pentagon don't have anything to hide...

why would they worry about that?

I haven't gone looking for any of those things, but I see nothing wrong with freedom of expression.

[Selatius]

4. The next step is shutting down youtube in the interests of "nat'l security

We all know it is an evil propaganda tool to spread lies.

[RufusEarl]

5. Well that may be the official story,

but that shit ain't the truth. They don't want uncensored film and photo's coming out of Iraq, What little we're seeing out of Iraq has been sanitized by US media, The pentagon can't keep the story of Iraq quit but they would like to keep the visuals to a minimum.