Thursday, April 24, 2008

[facebook] and the military


You've probably seen this:

Israel has sentenced a soldier to 19 days in jail for uploading a photograph taken on his military base to the social networking website, Facebook. The Israeli military declined to comment on the nature of the image, but said the soldier was serving with an elite intelligence unit.

A glance at the top right corner of this blog shows the Libertarian Party badge and I think it's ridiculous to try to impose a military modus operandi on a civilian population though it is the wont of the pollies, imagining themselves to be great military leaders, to do so - so much easier for them.

In the Anglo-West there has always been a separation of the two arms of society except in times of war and it's healthy they stay separated. So in that context the jail sentence is wrong. But that soldier was not on civvy street - he was a soldier on R&R and so the jail sentence was right.

The military operates under a code which is absolutely necessary for survival, especially in the life or death situation in Israel. Libertarians might not like that but it's necessary nonetheless.

There is a concept of collective responsibility in the military which guides its operations. The time to voice concerns is at the planning stage and a good leadership will allow ideas pertaining to the operation at hand to filter up from the ranks but the game plan is, by definition and by training, in the hands of the leadership group.

Once the course is decided though, dissidence must stop or else it will harm operational efficiency and that will lead inevitably to deaths. The enemy, in desiring to survive, is going to be pretty intense in exploring every chink in the armour and Facebook most certainly is a chink in the armour.

This soldier in the news report comes across as particularly wilful and it seems to me that 19 days is quite lenient - after all, he was giving succour to the enemy and with foreknowledge that he was doing so. Every military command knows that to allow this sloppiness in the ranks is going to harm morale in the long run and put the lives of thousands unnecessarily at risk.

Anyone who's ever been in uniform knows that there are no beg pardons in there and that the harder the unit, the more trained and experienced, the greater the chances of staying alive.

Now Facebook. Was there ever an organization less suitable for a soldier to be social networking on? You might like to glance at these posts here, here, here and here on the issue of that insidious organization and at this post on what's currently happening to Facebook.

So yes, the Israeli military seem quite justified in doing as they've done and his mates would not be too enamoured of him either.

4 comments:

  1. He´s in the military, though. As a friend (who is in right now) told me, "They own us. They tell us what we can do, when, and where." He (the Israeli soldier) should´ve known better. As far as Facebook, I read the article that was linked to the one you linked to about the photo. Very interesting, sounds like Zuckberg copied it from someone else. It wouldn´t be the first time, though. Gates did it to Jobs back in the ´80s.

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  2. I just wonder about his trainers. Surely theyshould have warned about this kind of thing, which could, after all, have put lives other than his at risk?

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  3. Even a civilian working for the military has to abide by these rules. It seems like he just didn't care about the rules!

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  4. Well, I suppose everyone's got the message over there now.

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