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Barring military from Web sites shortsighted

Saturday, May 26 at 12:01 AM

How do U.S. Department of Defense officials think they will attract desperately needed military recruits following their decision to ban several Internet sites extremely popular with our nation’s youth? (“Military blocks MySpace, YouTube, citing security concerns,” May 15.) Most young people at or nearing the age range needed by recruiters commonly spend more time on these Web sites than they do watching TV.
Concerns about security are exaggerated and could be resolved with training and guidelines that already exist. If security were really the causal issue, then e-mail and letter writing would also be prohibited.
Concerns with bandwidth usage are easily resolved with equipment that is affordable and commonly available. I’m sure Congress would be willing to support the troops and increase funding to resolve any bandwidth need.
This decision is clearly about censorship. It is an attempt to control and limit the messages and images that are increasingly contrary to how this administration wishes to portray the situation in Iraq. Military recruiting is hard enough with the war growing increasingly unpopular.
Giving potential recruits another reason not to volunteer and serve is as shortsighted as still expecting “victory” in the Iraqi quagmire.

Michael Elder, Littleton

READER COMMENTS

Mr Elder,
I think you missed the most important piece of the story. Those websites are banned on MILITARY and DOD computers. People can access them just as they always have - on their own personal computer. My husband who works in the private sector can't access those sites on his company computer even when he is away on business. The military is just catching up to what the private sector has been doing for years.
I doubt it will have an affect on new recruits. They don't need to be spending work time or using tax payer dollars to access those sites anyway. The military allows emails to family and friends already in battlefield locations and everywhere else in the world, military can use their own computers like the rest of us.

Posted by L on May 26, 2007 09:39 AM

When you join the military, you accept the life of military discipline. That may well include restrictions on your activities that your civilian counterparts do not face. For example, when I was on active duty (before the internet age), we were ordered to stay out of certain bars. If the military says security is an issue with respect to youtube, then it probably is. Or, as L suggests, they don't want them wasting time at work on non-military functions. To suggest it is an attempt to hide criticism of the situation in Iraq strikes me as slightly ridiculous. I mean, do they not let them read newspapers, either? Also, the letter writer seems to attribute restrictions on active duty personnel as having an effect on potential recruits who face no such restrictions.

Posted by anderson on May 26, 2007 01:35 PM

The rule, as I understand it, applies to some twelve different sites, all of which I presume have some similarity to You Tube. And, as anderson points out, the rule applies only to DOD computers. DOD says the reason for the rule has to do with saving bandwidth for military uses.

I don't know how accessible other computers are to service personnel serving in Iraq, but I presume that they are not scarce.

What the subject does bring up is how the Bush administration, with the apparent complicity of the media, has saved we Americans from having to witness much of the reality of the war. Only until recently did we see programs like Combat Hospital, which shows on CSPAN and which takes viewers inside combat hospitals in the war zone to see what goes on there, and which is quite realistic and can be hard to watch. Only recently have we seen newspaper article such as the one in the current issue of RMN which tells about life before Iraq for soldiers who died over there. Only recently are we learning of the poor treatment our injured and handicapped soldiers have been receiving for years. As far as I know, we still don't see any coffins coming back.

There is much truth to the notion that America is not at war, but that only a few million Americans are at war, those fighting it and their families. The notion of wartime sacrifice seems to have been completely scrapped except for those few million. It's difficult not to conclude that the purpose of keeping America uninformed about the tragedies to our own personnel is so that the Bush administration can pursue its strategies with as little inference from the American people as possible.

Posted by Truth on May 27, 2007 12:47 PM

Boy-George and his national security KEYSTONE-KOPS. (1) active duty military members who commit a felony offense lose their security clearances and are eventually discharged. (2) some of our active duty members holding sensitive security clearances, have parents in this country that are "illegal immigrants". (3) convicted felons are being allowed to enlist in our military units with access to national security info. The Front Range has sent several felons into our armed forces.

This we do, simply because Boy-George and his draft-dodging GOP posse, lack the moral authority to activate the "draft", which is sorely needed to man their illegal, immoral, and Hitler-style war. In the fashion of their pappy's, when Iraq-NAM broke-out, rich GOP kids broke for shopping malls, college, ski-slopes, etc. Hey! Where are St. Elway's and the Mastermind's young-uns?

Posted by CHENG on May 27, 2007 10:08 PM

Cheng are you drunk again?

Posted by on May 27, 2007 11:01 PM

Of course it's not Memorial Day. True, that's the name on the outside of the package, but inside it's vacation time, time for fun and games. The very patriotic will, of course, fly a flag and we'll see the occasional "We'll always remember" blurbs on TV. But let's not get carried away. We've hired people to do the war thing. Remember, they volunteered. The American people clearly have not. What we have done for our president is to answer his call to go to disneyland.

Posted by Truth on May 28, 2007 06:52 AM

Good grief! Are you serious, Mr. Elder? What a bunch of whiny-butts this nation has turned into. Mr. Elder, if a person’s very heavy decision about entering the military hinges upon whether or not their access to playpen websites is denied then I prefer they not even consider getting in the same foxhole with me.

Ah, but yes, of course, as always it boils down to a conspiracy by the Bush administration to keep people as uninformed as possible.

Truth wrote: “I don't know how accessible other computers are to service personnel serving in Iraq, but I presume that they are not scarce.”

Truth, you are right about one thing: You don’t know. You are as inaccurate as can be about the availability of computers for those serving in Iraq. I am in the Army National Guard, and I have some close personal friends over there right now who rarely get to exchange emails, even quick one or two liners, because of the scarcity of computers. And when they finally get on a computer it moves agonizingly slow because of an overloaded server and a small bandwidth.

It bummed me out when I was locked out of YouTube. But I completely understand why that happened. The military is not a social club. It is not a place in which little Timmy and little Susie get to spend their time the way mommy and daddy used to let them.

Geez, no wonder we have no stomach for a difficult war!! We have way too many whimpering nannies and pampered pups and kittens.

Posted by Pat on May 30, 2007 09:43 AM