Pictures of coffins. Censor or Privacy?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Pictures of coffins. Censor or Privacy?
6
Sat, 04-24-2004 - 5:20pm

What do you think?


Reader Advocate: No excuse for attempting to censor pictures of coffins.


http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04242004/utah/160198.asp


Maybe it's the remembrance of the images of flag-draped coffins in movies about World War II -- those sad scenes so often punctuated by the sound of a single bugle playing "Taps." Maybe it's the memory of the more than 55,000 coffins shipped from Vietnam to the United States during that divisive, seemingly endless undeclared war. Maybe it's the crushed posture of grieving families walking the last few feet to the graveside of a loved one lost to a war in the sands half a world away.
    It could be a combination of all those images that has led to a growing unease in the American media about the Bush Administration's policy of forbidding the release of photographs taken of flag-draped caskets as they are placed on air transports to be shipped to their families at home or photographs of ceremonies as the caskets are removed in the U.S.
    According to White House and Pentagon officials, the policy was put in place out of respect for the families of casualties. That excuse is hogwash. There is no clue in the photographs that would identify what person's body is in what coffin.
    This week, however, the dam on that policy broke. Following the release of one series of coffin photographs to the Seattle Times by a female employee of an American contractor in Iraq on Wednesday (she was fired subsequently), a flood of photographs -- more than 300 -- were released on the Internet on the Web site. The Memory Hole, http://www.thememoryhole.org, had filed a Freedom of Information request with the Defense Department for the pictures of any dead American troops arriving from Iraq at the Dover base in Delaware, according to The New York Times. Officials at the Pentagon went (I can't resist) ballistic, saying the release of the 361 photos was a mistake.
    Information and photos appear in today's Salt Lake Tribune in the A section.
    According to a copyright story by New York Times' writer Bill Carter, editors at papers across the nation had no idea that the Defense department was routinely taking pictures of the coffins as they arrived in the United States. Carter also wrote that the Pentagon said it was taking the photographs for historical purposes. One could infer from that explanation that the Pentagon hoped all of us would be dead before the photographs became public.
    According to a Washington Post story by Blaine Harden and Dana Milbank, the media coverage ban was put into place by the Bush Administration just prior to the opening of the Iraq War in March 2003; reporters and photojournalists were forbidden to witness or report on the ceremonies for the remains of soldiers lost overseas. Editors protested this media ban -- pointing out that Americans had a right to get a full picture of the cost of war -- but their concerns were ignored.
    "Respect for the families" is an excuse that does not hold water. The photos on the Internet depict the reverence shown by military personnel handling the coffins. This kind of respect by fellow military is meaningful to families who have lost husbands, fathers and sons, daughters and moms and wives to this conflict.


Photographs and stories about the human cost of war have a place in the press. Government cannot argue that such coverage gives military advantage to the enemies of America. No locations are disclosed, no plans are discussed, no measure of armament or placement is described. If a free country is afraid of free images, then we are in trouble.
    Americans have seen their war dead come home before; they will see them come home in the future. To ignore their arrival is to offer them disrespect.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2003
Sat, 04-24-2004 - 10:27pm
I'm not a parent, however I do have family a few memebers of family in the military at this time. The only comment I feel is they deserve the proper homecoming dead or alive. Very very sad.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 04-25-2004 - 1:17pm
<<"Respect for the families" is an excuse that does not hold water. >>

ITA, the reason Bush forbid the traditional viewing of coffins is that he doesn't want people to be reminded of the ugly fact of war--it takes lives. I oppose his policy because I think the sacrifice these people made needs to be acknowledged by a grateful nation. We need to see the truth.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 04-25-2004 - 11:28pm
As a military mom it showed how respectful and with much dignity our returning soldiers were treated. I think we all need to see that even President Bush or maybe I should especially Bush.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 04-27-2004 - 10:07am
The one thing that I dont understand about this is that the supposed rule about showing the flag covered caskets was first adopted back during the Clinton administration.

Can someone answer me why?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 04-27-2004 - 10:18am

Censorship, plain and simple.


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Tue, 04-27-2004 - 10:35am
It was in effect during the Clinton administration, but it was actually adopted before that. I had read somewhere that it had been in effect for 12 years and did the math and that put it in the Clinton administration. That was my mistake, because it was actually adopted 13 years ago. It was adopted during the first gulf war due to the requests of the families of the servicemen who didn't want to be used by the media to promote an agenda they disagreed with at that terrible time of loss and grief for them.

I will go back and change that.