The US military’s war in Afghanistan recently took a strange and geeky turn as they added a Facebook page and a Twitter account to their arsenal of weapons. They say it’s all part of an effort to “tell their own story” and to combat the increasingly web-savvy Taliban in the online space. It’s not enough to bomb the hell out of the enemy, now you also have to sign up more Facebook fans too.

When you check out the US Forces twitter account here, you’ll see updates like:

• If Afghanistan matters to you, enter the Afghanistan Matters video contest: http://afghanistanmatters.com
• Gen. McKiernan: The Afghanistan mission is a “noble and valuable” one.
• Photos of massive Afghan drug & weapons bust available on our Facebook page. http://tiny.cc/LMpF8

Of course they’re also sending out more, um, important updates like reports of battles and casualties and whatnot.

Now cruise on over to the US Army Facebook page and you’ll find everything from a wall full of poetry and “I just signed up, heading over there in a month!” messages, as well as news updates and, yes, a huge pile of fans. As of this writing, they had 26,070 fans, which is about 26,068 more than me.

They say it’s all part of getting the word out about what’s really going on over there, and, of course, battling all those guys doing sweet Flash animations for the Taliban. But when you look at the kind of info they’re pushing out, a suspicious person might think the whole thing is actually a way to get youngins’ in the States excited about the military. Call me crazy, but with all their military’s recruiting problems, endless wars and various p.r. debacles, it does seem to make sense they’d use every tool at their disposal to try to attract interest among potential soldiers.

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Tags: Facebook, Social Media, social networking, Twitter, US Army

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