US Military to Uphold TV Cover Ban on Coffins from Iraq

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031103/ts_nm/iraq_usa_coffins_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

<snip>BERLIN (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Monday it was sticking to a policy forbidding television camera crews and photographers from filming coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq (news - web sites) at a U.S. air base in southwestern Germany.

Officials at Ramstein, a major U.S. air base which serves as a transfer point, had allowed media access in the past to honor guard ceremonies and transfers of American-flag covered coffins onto U.S.-bound military transport planes, but rules banning coverage were strictly enforced just before the Iraq war began.

While U.S. officials say the policy was created out of respect for relatives, others criticize the lack of media access, arguing its aim is to prevent the public from seeing large numbers of coffins that could turn opinion against the war.

"You can argue both sides," said one U.S. official who asked not to be identified. "Some say Americans need to see this, this is factual and the public needs to see (the coffins). Yet you also think of the mom of a killed soldier and the trauma of seeing television pictures of her son being repatriated."

....This is purely for political reasons and it is Disgusting! :grr:

[caledesi]

1. Truly disgusting. Dead soldiers don't deserve any respect...

I mean what else can you assume from this?

[MidwestTransplant]

5. He wouldn't have enought time to do anything else

[saigon68]

25. GARBAGE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT

The reason these MOTHERFUCKERS don't want the public to see this is because THEY--THE MOTHERFUCKERS believe the pictures of death, coffins, body bags etc, caused the loss of will and the war in VIET-NAM

Now we have IRAQ-NAM and they (the MFs) will fight to their dying breath, that 20 bodybags stacked up will cause the War to be lost.

Well I have news for them--- sooner or later this ugly mess will be front and center. Sooner or later the parents of those killed are going to take to the streets. Many like me will be there with them, in our old Cammie uniforms screaming to the CHIMPANZEE.

How many kids did you kill today SHRUB?

Sorry for the profanity. This whole idea of censorship reeks of profanity.

[benfranklin1776]

29. No apology needed.

Censorship is so foul and odious it corrupts even the adjectives used to describe it. Junior has demonstrated that he is a chip off the old block, since lack of concern for the dead is a tradition of "the Family." Recall Babs and her "compassionately conservative" statement:

"But why should we hear about body
bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to
happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I
mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful
mind on something like that?"

The heartless fruit falls not far from the tree.

[leftchick]

6. You could tell Bill really cared about those soldiers and their families..

The aWol* chimpass could give a flying fuck about them!

[LibertyorDeath]

7. Well former President Clinton is a real Man the thing that currently

occupies the Oval office is a pathetic excuse of a human-being
a total coward.

[ramapo]

2. The new reality

Disinformation and no information keeps management in charge.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. America doesn't have state controlled TV like Saddam Hussein did

We just have cover bans. That is very different.

[frylock]

4. funny that we need to be reminded over and over about 911..

they don't seem overly concerned about greiving families of 911 victims. They show that footage all the time.

[LibertyorDeath]

8. Could not agree more with your observation

These people are amoral slime.

This policy has Karl Rove written all over it.

[MaineDem]

9. Americans need to see this

This is censorship plain and simple.

And it's wrong.

[UpInArms]

10. Bush Family Values

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that. And watch him suffer. - Barbara Bush - ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5041.htm

[VolcanoJen]

11. Excellent, excellent, Must-Read essay by Mark Shields

It's touching, and really hammers home this issue. He really scolds the Administration in it, as well as the media.

It's over in Editorials; anyone interested in this troubling issue should have a look:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=19457

[xray s]

12. The government doesn't call them coffins anymore

They are now called "transfer tubes" :mad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1102-08.htm

[skip fox]

13. This is the type of place a letter-writing campaign might be of use:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=639665

has some phrasing which might be of use to anyone considering such a letter.

[Serial Mom]

14. As a friend of a mother whose son was killed

in 1991 in the first Gulf War when The Dick cheney decided upon this policy, she personally wanted to go meet her son's flag draped coffin at Dover! Of course, they highly recommended that she and the rest of her family NOT go to Delaware, in so much as even talking the funeral director here locally to suggest the family not even meet the coffin at the local airport!

I don't think she would have felt any more trauma by seeing him returned home than the trauma of his death!

Rest In Peace to all the soldiers!
Forever in our Hearts
Lcpl Scott A Schroeder
12/17/70 - 1/29/91

[skip fox]

15. Beautiful!

A great post. Both compassionate and showing to what extent the slimeballs will go: discouraging a mother from greeting her son's coffin at her local airport. Shameful.

[yellowcanine]

16. How about letting the families decide?

I would be willing to bet that many of the families would want news coverage of the return of their fallen sons and daughters. How is it respectful to hide them? As long as the transport and transfer is done in a respectful way, with honor guards, etc. - seems to be much more respectful than acting as if we are ashamed of their sacrifice. Maybe Bush is ashamed - as well he should be.

[Endangered Specie]

17. the media had no problem

covering coffins during clinton

Proof that Faux News, PMSNBC, and Conservative News Network, are, well, self described

[proud patriot]

18. Disgraceful

Truely utterly disgraceful

[teryang]

19. New stnading tall policy

Let's have the nation ignore those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

[skip fox]

20. That's the ticket. The type of rhetoric we need.

Bush: "We honor them by not seeing them and not thinking about them. We honor their families by not letting you see their grief. We honor them in the dark, in ignorance, for that is the only fit honor. Let them pass without mention. It would do no good, after all, and would be a political inconvenience."

You bet.

[Bombero1956]

21. typical government thinking

"You can argue both sides," said one U.S. official who asked not to be identified. "Some say Americans need to see this, this is factual and the public needs to see (the coffins). Yet you also think of the mom of a killed soldier and the trauma of seeing television pictures of her son being repatriated."


May I ask how a mother can identify her repatriated son in a metal coffin covered by a flag? If they offload 15 coffins and the media is across the tarmac how can they tell whos who.

[DBoon]

22. OK to show Iraqi corpses on TV!

That was necessary, though to convince the "barbarians" that the officials were in fact dead.

[diamond14]

26. bush* displayed saddam's sons as trophy kills....didn't think about

any mothers....

BTW...will shrub show up to 'hug' the mother's of these dead soldiers? what about that pResdential promise?

[calimary]

23. Yet another reason to use that TOLL FREE Capitol Hill number

1 (800) 839 - 5276 - call it and they'll transfer you, free, to anybody's office in the House and/or Senate.

It would be good to start making a stink about this. WHY are these honored dead being slid home in "transfer tubes" (!!!!!!!!!!!!) under the cover of darkness and secrecy - is it that we're ashamed to admit to them? Why are they denied a decent burial? Clinton was MAN ENOUGH to attend military funerals of fallen soldiers under his command - when he was Commander-in-Chief. But the First Chickenhawk?

Also, consider Take Back the Media - www.takebackthemedia.com - for contact info for all the media outlets. They need to hear complaints about this, too.

[David Zephyr]

24. It's Called Censorship.

Say the word. It's easy. Censorship.

[henslee]

27. foolish, frightened policy.. the coffins we construct in our imaginations

are far more sinister than any pixel image that we seem to become desensitized to after a while anway.

[Algorem]

28. Can't even see em on Showtime?