Please be warned – videos linked to in the following post contain combat footage and graphic violence, which could offend or upset. You may have to register with YouTube.com to see some of the videos in order to verify your age. Registration is free and easy to complete.
The 1991 Gulf War was a watershed in television journalism: it was the first time that a war was 'beamed into our living rooms'. Audiences marvelled at green, night-vision images of arial battles raging over Baghdad, and the military realised that they had a fantastic new public relations tool.
The coverage of the second Iraq war has been markedly different. In the intervening years, the US military has moved to put a sanitised, almost corporate look on warfare. 'Spokespeople' in combat fatigues address the world from shiny command centres that resemble an ABC Monday Night Football commentary set. They proudly tell the world that their precision guided weapons are seeking out the bad guys, while leaving fluffy lambs frolicking nearby safely intact.
The US military command's stranglehold on information coming out of Battlefield Iraq has recently been broken by an unusual source – their own troops. Soldiers with cheap digital cameras have been making personal videos of their experiences of combat in Iraq and posting them online on the hugely popular video-sharing website YouTube.com.
The picture they paint is a far cry from the sanitised vision - in which death is merely an abstract concept, 'collateral damage' – presented to the world's press from the US military.
The videos vary hugely in their quality and content. Many of the movies are shot with small cameras mounted to soldier's helmets, allowing them to carry on fighting while filming. This gives them the feel of a Playstation shoot-em-up, a feeling reinforced by the fact that many are set to the dulcet tones of heavy metal music.
One thing the videos certainly do not convey, is cultural sensitivity. In one, contractors allegedly working for Blackwater Security are heard to shout "get those fu**ing ni**ers", as they shoot at insurgents from a rooftop. All manner of incidents, from roadside bombs to snipers chatting as they fire at insurgents are recorded.
US troops are not the only ones to share their combat experiences online. Iraqi insurgents are also posting videos on YouTube. They similarly post footage of attacks on US troops and have even left a video message to instill fear in their opponents.
The insurgents however, are not in the business of winning hearts and minds – the US military are – and the high command is aware of the potential negative publicity these home-made movies represnt, particularly when they show soldiers shouting and laughing while shooting Iraqi insurgents.
Despite their distaste, they appear powerless to stop these videos being posted online. Lt. Corey Schultz told MediaShift that "What we saw [on YouTube] does not appear to violate policy." Although Lt. Schultz said that it was policy not to show remains of people killed or detainees, both feature prominently on videos all over YouTube. London's Independent reported that some US commanding officers were trying to prevent their men from posting by assigning those that did with worse duties.
So it appears the videos will keep on playing, but very few hearts and minds, in the Iraq or abroad, will be won by their content. They do at least serve the purpose of removing the 'corporate' gloss with which this war has been coated.
