Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins
Photos Of Military Coffins (Casualties From Iraq) At Dover Air Force Base
Pentagon angered by photos from military mortuary
It's an age-old political problem during wartime. Presidents worry about losing political support once the flag-draped coffins of our sons and daughters begin landing on our shores. Whatever is a well-meaning politician who is primarily concerned with covering his @$$ to do?
To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.
In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains....
President Bush's opponents say he is trying to keep the spotlight off the fatalities in Iraq. "This administration manipulates information and takes great care to manage events, and sometimes that goes too far," said Joe Lockhart, who as White House press secretary joined President Bill Clinton at several ceremonies for returning remains. "For them to sit there and make a political decision because this hurts them politically -- I'm outraged."
Pentagon officials deny that. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said the policy covering the entire military followed a victory over a civil liberties court challenge to the restrictions at Dover and relieves all bases of the difficult logistics of assembling family members and deciding which troops should get which types of ceremonies.
Of course, we'll just pretend they don't exist- and then the problem will go away, right? Of course, a dead soldier is of absolutely no use to the Bush Administration, and in fact could only be a liability. So why would they want to allow news coverage and photographs? Move along...nothing to see here...move along...no cameras allowed...move along, people....
The reality here is that George W. Bush wants to have it both ways. He wants to trumpet his "commitment" to the "war on terror" (never mind, of course, that no one has ever linked Iraq to terrorism- or that Bush has killed more people in the past year than all acts of terror combined), but he also is determined to deflect attention from the cost of that war. Having lied to and deceived the world in order to get his war against Iraq, he must now try to accentuate the "positives" in order to steer the spotlight away from the poor planning, the cronyism, and the appalling lack of control the American military has over Iraq.
Who says dead men tell no tales?
No, Bush just doesn't want photos of military coffins used as left-wing political propoganda. Anybody who wants these photos trotted out for political gain really needs to reappraise their basic views on human decency. That includes this little weasel known as Russ Kick.
Furthermore, the policy in question was instituted by Clinton in November of 2000. Bush has simply been trying to enforce it (although apparently not sucessfully, considering that the story you cite is more than six months old). Still, if you want to blame anybody, blame Clinton. He approved the policy.
CLINTON DID IT! So what? Contrary to what seems to be your belief, liberals don't take the word of Clinton as gospel.
Exactly. This isn't some new thing by W. Personally, I can't think of anything more disrespectful to our military families than to trot out their loved ones' coffins for the photographers.
Adam,
...I never said otherwise. What I said was that if you're upset over this policy, you ought to blame the administration that approved it, not the administration followed it.
"no one has ever linked Iraq to terrorism..."
Really? No links to terrorism at all?
I can accept the statement "no links to 9/11" (simply because they haven't been proved yet), but no links to terrorism as a whole?
The following are indisputable:
- an empty 747 outside Baghdad was used as a terrorist training camp
- Iraq offered refuge to uber-terrrorist Abu Nidal (Klinghoffer, anyone?), 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspirator Abdul Rahman Yasin, and al Quaeda operative Al-Zarqawi
- Saddam paid $25 grand to each Palestinian suicide bomber family
- a documented 1998 meeting in Baghdad between al Qaeda #2 Zawahiri and Ramadan, Saddam's V.P.
These are just a few of the ties to terrorism I can recall off the top of my head.
I think you ought to retract that statement, or at least rephrase it.
Inkling is right. The original post fails to meet the level of accuracy seen in many other areas of TPRS. Accuracy is one the aspects of this blog that keeps me interested in it.
The libs are making a big deal out of Dover out of desperation. Let's face it, when you lack a viable platform and lack a viable candidate, all that's left is the tired old lefty tactic of emotional appeal.
I pray that the people of this country love it with their hearts, and use their intellect when casting their vote.
On a techy note, my prior comment received an error when I clicked Post, leading me to think the post operation failed. In fact, the post function worked, the error seems to happen when server tries to update the post window. This probably happened to Da C Man as well.