Youtube.com/WAR

The army and the media have had a constantly changing relationship over the past sixty years or so as technology has evolved. World War II gave us grainy videos weeks after the fact. Reporters in Vietnam reported on the news every night. During the Gulf War the 24 hour cable news networks had constant updates on the progress in Iraq. Now as we have begun our fifth year of occupying Iraq, the military is going straight to YouTube to broadcast the combat operations of our troops.

From the AFP:

Multi-National Forces Iraq created a "channel" on the popular video sharing website in March to show the clips, which often capture the intensity of combat while generally showing US troops in a positive light.

Pentagon spokesmen were unable to explain what the military hopes to accomplish with the "MNFIRAQ" channel, but it appeared to be part of a push by to find new ways to gain support for a deeply unpopular war.

"This is a specific effort to get information out about Iraq," said Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.

Could this actually be a useful propaganda tool for the military? I'm not so sure. Showing video clips of troops blowing things and people up may be cool for part of the video game crowd. Yet the average YouTube user might not be as impressed. This footage will show the brutality of war, as I could clearly see after watching a few posts. The images bring the war right onto the monitor and not the cleaned up crap the traditional media gives its viewers. Plenty of people have watched the footage so far so while it is being widely dispersed, no one knows what the effects of it will be.