Low Morale: Iraq Troops banned from using YouTube and other sites

It’s not enough that the troops in Iraq are continually being asked to stay longer and be there more frequently, which means they spend more time away from their families and are more susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now the Pentagon has banned the troops from using sites like YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, etc. due to “sapping too much bandwidth.”

YouTube’s co-founders on Thursday challenged the Pentagon’s assertion that soldiers overseas were sapping too much bandwidth by watching online videos, the military’s principal rationale for blocking popular Web sites from Defense Department computers.

“They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don’t know what the problem is,” Chief Executive Chad Hurley said with a hearty laugh during an interview with The Associated Press.

I can only imagine how appealing snail mail is for troops when they’re watching their children grow up in another country.