Israeli and US soldiers make videos during occupation

There’s been a lot of controversy over this recently released video of Israeli soldiers dancing to Kesha’s Tik Tok while patrolling Hebron. Some critics complain of a lack of respect towards the people whose land they are illegally occupying. On the other hand, I think for every minute they are rehearsing their dance moves and editing their video, at least no one is being shot, harassed or intimidated.

A similar video came out of Afghanistan where US soldiers re-made Lady Gaga’s Telephone. The dancing is hilarious, as are the props. The higgly piggly background to their music making is surprisingly “real.” But again, at least as long as they are focused on music, dancing, and videos, no one is being killed.

Finally, I always have a soft spot for treason. Apparently Private Bradley Manning breached military security in Iraq and downloaded “150,000 diplomatic cables, as well as secret videos and a PowerPoint presentation.” One video he shared was a helicopter attack in Baghdad where the pilots were speaking gleefully about killing people. It’s hilarious that “military intelligence” (sic) prevents the use of thumb drives, but many of the computers have compact disk drives. Private Manning hummed Lady Gaga songs and pretended to be listening to her music when he was copying the files. NICE!