...A Totally Unrelated Post...

Saddam Hussein has officially been executed. Specifically, hung by the neck until he was dead, for crimes against humanity, as specified by the new Iraqi government.

More on this as it becomes available.

As I work in retail, during the holidays, I am simply swamped at work. This week is no exception.

I had planned another entry talking about my father, and a Year-In-Review entry, but both of those are going to have to wait until later in the week. I have been, and continue to be, far too busy to take the time for one of my usual well-linked and documented rants, or even a long, rambling personal screed about things which hold no interest whatsoever for anyone outside my immediate family.

HOWEVER, having said that, I want to answer a comment made by a stupid guest on a TV show.

When I got home tonight, Tara was watching 20/20's special about internet video.

Blah. I go to YouTube myself; I'm perfectly aware of what you can find there, thanks.

HOWEVER, they did a segment about videos shot in Iraq and Afghanistan by our troops on the ground, and one of the guests commented that it was "interesting" that the military has a policy about acceptable content on blogs, but not on videos.

No, it isn't, unless you know nothing whatsoever about how our military operates, what its concerns are, and why they hold those concerns.

So, here we go. A little explanation for those of you who may also have found that fact interesting.

One of the biggest issues for any military force, but most especially ours, is Operational Security, commonly abbreviated OpSec. OpSec saves lives, because if the enemy does not know where your troops are, or where they are going, or how they will act when they get there, it is much harder to kill them.

Our military in particular has issues with this, because we have freedom of the press, and the media has been, as a body, enormously opposed to recent military campaigns in general. Embedded reporters, that the units "hosting" them cannot simply boot out, can reveal pretty much whatever they want to, helping the enemy every step of the way.

They may not actually be aware that this is treason.

Our troops are.

ALL THAT ASIDE, the difference between a soldier-shot video and a news clip is profound. A news clip gives as much information as possible, because "the public deserves to know." Usually this is delivered with much editorializing on the part of the reporters, and the news anchors, about subjects about which they know nothing.

A soldier's video, on the other hand, tends to be more immediate. Searching the net results in video of gunfights, clips of our guys goofing off when not on patrol, and one fairly memorable clip shot by a helicopter of two Iraqis screwing in a convertible. Very little editorializing is done, although the clips tend to be far less edited, and frequently contain such offensive things as violence, prayer, or loud persistent swearing by a soldier a LITTLE too close to a mortar round's terminal explosion.

A soldier's video also typically contains virtually nothing that might be used against our forces by the enemy.

For this reason, the military isn't all that concerned with soldier-shot videos; there's no reason to be. As long as our troops are concerned with their own lives and keeping them, which they are and will remain, there is no REASON to be concerned about video clips coming out of Iraq.

Blogs are a different story. Try an experiment. Write down a story about something that happened to you today. It can be as detailed as you want, but keep it to about two pages.

Make it interesting.

Now, go back to that story, and remove any reference to where you were, what you were doing, how you did it, who was with you, or what you had intended to do in the first place.
Suddenly, your story is a whole lot less entertaining, isn't it? In fact, it probably makes no sense at all.

The difference between videos and blogs is that in a video, you have to make profound, continuous effort to INCLUDE information that violates OpSec; in a blog, you have to make profound, continuous effort to EXCLUDE information that violates OpSec.

The same guest on 20/20 that made that comment theorized that the reason the military hasn't made a policy about videos claimed that they knew it would be impossible.

Lies.

I will tell you why.

At virtually any military school, and before a lot of deployments, the Army (the other services I'm sure use similar practice, although the Army is the only one I've experienced first-hand,) uses a simple technique to get rid of things it doesn't want: the Amnesty Box.

They line everybody up, with all their gear, and give them a speech in which they list anything and everything they consider contraband for that mission.

They introduce the Amnesty Box, and say something like this:

"If you come forward and deposit your contraband in the Amnesty Box, you will be safe. Nothing will happen to you; you will never get in trouble for using the Amnesty Box. But if we catch you with contraband after today..."

...Followed by a long list of bad things that will happen to you.

Someplace like Iraq, where OpSec violations get you killed, those consequences could easily include jail time, and military jails are not like your cushy civilian jails. Military prison SUCKS.

All it would take to end the flow of soldier videos is to put cellphones, digital cameras, and laptops in the contraband list, and stick a few violators in jail.

Instant solution. The trick is, it's not a problem, so there's no reason to go there.

Interestingly, and I DO find this interesting, the woman who made these astonishingly foolish and ill-informed statements was a former Assistant Secretary of Defense - under Madeline Allbright.

No wonder things went so well under the Clinton Administration, hmmm?