The United States military has finally unleashed the most terrifying weapon of all time on the Taliban.
That’s right, the U.S. military is launching a Facebook page and a YouTube site, in addition to feeds on Twitter.
This is an effort to better communicate with people who receive their news from nontraditional media and as an outlet for soldiers to post stories and photos on the web.
This may also be an effort to counter the propaganda of the Taliban. The army has long said that it has been losing the information war to the group.
The use of social networking sites is not new to the military. The Air Force and the Army have Facebook pages already. Even General Ray Odierno, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, has his very own Facebook page where you can see one of his favorite movies is Sleepless in Seattle.
On the U.S. Forces’ Twitter page, a video of the largest drug bust in the War in Afghanistan is just one click away. The video was posted on May 31, just hours before the death of a U.S. service member was announced.
It’s great that the U.S. forces in Afghanistan have joined in on the social networking craze. We certainly hope its members are making a legitimate effort to reach all of the people in the world who use Facebook as if it were the only Web site on the Internet.
It is still ridiculous and another example of how ironic the world has become – even in matters as serious as war. Furthermore, it is ridiculous that the military seems proud of being able to do the one thing on the Internet that everyone can do.
The saddest part of all this is that the military has managed to trivialize its own efforts in the war by trying to be trendy. When it comes to communication, we should expect more from our military than few more poorly written updates about the war.
All of these Web sites are not a real medium of communication and certainly not for something as serious as war. Instead, they are meant to kill time and help users keep up with old friends. They should not be anyone’s main source of information about our national security.
Travis Hensley is a philosophy senior and may be reached at [email protected]
