Saturday, March 24, 2007

More Military & Media In Iraq

From Danger Room comes the following chock-full-o-links paragraphs.

For years, the Pentagon has come under harsh criticism its brain-dead approach to handling the media, broadly defined. From clamping down on bloggers to chucking out embedded reporters to banning digital cameras to quaking in fear of web developments, the military's press operators seemed to miss no opportunity to shoot themselves in the collective foot, repeatedly. All this, while insurgents trained potential terrorists online, advertised their martial prowess on YouTube, even sold t-shirts over the 'net.

But recently, things have begun to change. The Defense Department's Pentagon Channel started posting YouTube-esque videos. Bloggers have been called into more and more conference calls with senior leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Multi-National Force-Iraq set up its own YouTube channel.

Now, the Army has set up shop on content-sharing sites like Flickr, del.icio.us, and YouTube. The material is pretty awful -- like the stilted, propaganda-like reports, straight from the Armed Forces Network. It's a start, though.

Voice your opinions, Voice your views, contact your politicians, contact your veterans organizations..... Read the blogs, link to the warriors and veterans. The media war is not yet lost. The shooting war is going well. Our troops have done a magnificent job against an innovative, flexible, creative and ruthless enemy. This enemy has used every American value against our troops. They have killed children, women, workers, and innocents to turn our stomach. They have shown that they have no remorse or conscience. They want us dead and they will do anything to succeed.

In the truest Star Wars sense: This is a fight between the Forces of Life and the Forces of Darkness. Death is easier to deliver. Life requires more effort.... "Dying's easy. Livings hard" but we all knew that going in.

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