Well, I happen to like the videos. As for the prisoners, well I have better photos of insurgents here in my possession. You see my husband was in Iraq in 2004 and in 2006. Personally it wouldn't bother me if the prisoners were tortured, especially after they killed my main man. So if the soldiers have videos online, good for them...keep making them. OH, and thanks for the laugh. It felt good.

Interesting format to the article... I've never seen one with embedded videos like this, which captures the attention of the reader. But as far as the format of the article goes I cannot pull from it a consistent arguement. There seems to be different ideas from each video, but no arguement to tie all together, so I'm not sure of the author's thoughts on soldier blogging in general.
As far as my thoughts, I think these types of blogs, showing happy kids, and interaction of soldiers with civilians are for propaganda purposes, to counter the images of attrocities and illegal activity from the soldiers. What I think is funny however, is that these probably posatively motivated videos for propaganda, show a sort of twisted humor. I'm not sure if its because of the cultural differences, between what Americans think is funny (such as singing naked in the shower) and what Eastern cultures think is funny, or perhaps if we are looking at the early results of war-trauma syndrome, and the sort of twisted humor which is the product of being in an environment of moral degredation and chaos, much at their own creation. In general, what I see, is two very differen't cultures, and the mixing of these two cultures. The introduction of western cultures to Eastern people... and especially Westerners in the position of a soldier where civilians will most likely play along, out of fear and general social balance of power. I think in the west, the video of the soldiers making the Iraqi men dance to "boom boom boom boom, I want you IN MY ROOM" would be seen as humorous. But they overlook the lyrics in such a song, and how that is in conflict with traditional Eastern values, simply because Western cultures are prone to putting ANYTHING in their lyrics, and it not really creating a stir. From an Eastern perspective, we probably see these videos and think, What can these soldiers offer the East in terms of becomming civilized?
To comment more, I would need a consistent arguement by the author, so I'll know what to agree or disagree with, but initially this is my response, that what we are viewing in such videos, is an American attempt to give off the image of FRIENDS of the Iraqi civilians, and not FOES as attrocity videos have proven, which is why the army encourages it. However, in the attempt to make such propaganda, the U.S. Army's lack of cultural awarness, and perhaps also psychological difficencies in the troops cause a stir in the public, which is why, as the article has asserted, blogs have become increasingly censored by the hierarchy of the military. I'm sure there are far better examples of videos with questionable humor as well... the ABU GHRAIB pictures, esentially, were apparently an expression of US Humor... because I think we all remember quite vividly the smiles on the faces of the soldiers as they were positioning nude Iraqi men. So it is clear that humor goes wrong... but i'm not sure if tis because in general westerners are utterly lacking morals due to exposure to such immorality in their own media and socialization as children, or if its because we are looking at a psychological condition in these soldiers which has stripped them of their very humanity.