Could blogging soldiers be the military’s secret weapon

To say the the American armed forces use of social media and blogging has been schizophrenic is at least a bit of an understatement. While the Generals are encourage to take up the blogging mantle for the Armed Forces the men and women in the trenches have been muffled at the best of times. This could change though if a suggestion from former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne gains any traction.

Wynne thinks its time to let military bloggers have a freer hand. “This thing of letting the Taliban, letting Al Jazeera, letting the enemy public affairs unit get a hold of 24 to 48 hours of news cycle and then you announce that you’re forming an investigative team — what is that?” he adds. “The sad part is, that when [the military] forms an investigative team, it looks like it’s only for one reason: to cover it up.”

“I mean, it’s not like a soldier blog,” Wynne continues. “If [that soldier] walked into a hut and blogged that there were 20 bad guys, they had 15 computers, 20 AK-47s — if he blogged that right away, even if it went to a command center — you’d be far better off that what we’re doing now.”

Source: Wired: Danger Room

The idea the Taliban and other insurgents in the areas of conflict have been quick to get their side of the story out as quickly as possible using things like video and blogging. For the Americans to do the same means trying to fight their way through miles of read tape by which time their message is of no use.

But if the Taliban are manipulating the information environment to make American attacks looks worse than they actually are, then the bloggers and photographers might be able to help.

“If you take down a place in Afghanistan, you’ve got to be in there with your cameras before the bad guys unload the truck of bodies (if that’s what they’re doing). Or, if they’ve put a bunch of women and children in there so you can blow them up — you need to be in there first to know that,” Wynne says.

“We’re saddened when… the President has to go on the record and say, ‘we hate it when any casualties occur.'” Wynne adds. But the President “might not know — because nobody blogged it.”

I have never really understood the over all reluctance of the Armed Forces to put as many roadblocks in the way of getting their message out as quickly as possible and there is no denying that blogging would be one of the quickest. It would also carry the weight of the soldier’s own words rather than regurgitate propaganda from field headquarters. I understand the need to make sure that no secrets or battle plans are given away but I think we can give our soldiers enough credit to make sure that doesn’t happen. After all they are over there willing to give up their lives.