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?
