It’s hard enough to mix media with politics. But when it comes to media and the military, there is another level of sensibility that is necessary to protect our troops.
Criticized for banning bloggers, the Pentagon has decided to take matters into its own hands. If people want the Army on YouTube, then the Army will be the one putting information on YouTube. People are excited that the military is finally coming around…or is it?
This argument can go one of two ways. Firstly, the fact that the Armed Forces are controlling the information (even if they are displaying it in a more user friendly format) does not detract from the fact that it is the Army and not an independent agent.
However, I believe that nothing, absolutely nothing, should jeopardize the safety of our troops. The more information that is out there, as silly and mundane as it may be, makes it easier to track troops, leak information and could endanger the safety of our troops. Who is to determine what information is OK to post on the Internet and what isn’t? I would rather the Pentagon not be concerned about Major Micky’s blog posts from Afghanistan and maybe (here’s an idea!) focus on the job they are supposed to be doing.
In a way it is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube—once you let information begin to filter out, stopping it in the future will be harder than never letting it out in the first place.
Derick Vollrath @ Sat, 03/31/2007 - 7:31pm
I have to say my first reaction is that the pentagon's no blogging/no video posting policy is a good one. I mean, anyone can read those things, even this countries enemies. From these posts they can glean informations on troop activities, whereabouts, and moral. You wouldn't want you special forces blogging about the covert night time raid he's scheduled to conduct the next day. Keeping your average soldier from blogging is different only in degree.