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YouTube is a global phenomenon and the instrumental role it plays in hosting videos from Iraq is undeniable.  “PFC Jerrick Farthing Patrols Mosul, Iraq, 4/10/08” is done in the style of those shorts with the hand and eye of an individual succinctly removed from the combat zone.  These YouTube videos are some of the most raw and unfiltered imagery coming out of the conflict in Iraq, yet still register a gleam of unreality.  Beneath the pixelated videos there is truth, but it’s overshadowed by a sheen of fiction, a byproduct of a media that sensationalizes rather than informs.  When all one sees and learns of war is mediated through various channels, how much truth trickles down to the home viewer sitting at a television or computer screen?  PFC Jerrick Farthing Patrols Mosul, Iraq, 4/10/08 makes no claims to authenticity; the plastic world it inhabits is a visible refuge from a media that denies its own role in promoting artifice and simulation.