War, Just a Click Away

[ovidsen]

The Washington Post website contains an article with links to some incredible video of the "war on terror", from both the US (and British) and insurgent perspectives. Warning: there are some graphic videos of people being killed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081000554.html

The writer, Robert MacMillen concludes with some very interesting commentary on war videos on the web, and the possible obsolescence of "imbedded reporters".:

On a final note, even if the Army shies away from using death and destruction set to pulse-pounding music as a way to buck up its sagging recruitment numbers, the Mahdi army clip I mentioned shows that the other side is a big fan of this sort of thing. While iFilm should broadcast whatever it wants on the Internet, it strikes me as strange that the U.S. military seems unable or unwilling to stop its personnel from disseminating their personal on-the-ground video.

Sure, Vietnam and other combat zones produced their share of homespun footage, but the sheer availability online of warzone content produced by our GIs kind of eliminates the rationale of "embedding" reporters to keep a tighter lid on what they tell the public. The Bush administration might be trying to win hearts and minds overseas, but it's easy to imagine how the disaffected Muslim youth of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are probably reacting to that night-vision porno clip, especially after they've been fired up by al Zarqawi's latest blood-soaked DVD production from Iraq.