Freedom of the Press. Unless it hurts our poll numbers.Follow

It's based on the UN sanctions. That's it. Not a million factors, just one. It's not the Americna's fault, it's Saddam's fault. The current situation where 100,000 Iraqis have died is the America's fault.

In today's Washington Post:

Photos of Soldiers' Coffins Revive Controversy

By Blaine Harden and Dana Milbank

The Pentagon lost its tight control over the images of coffins returning from Iraq as about 350 such images were released under the Freedom of Information Act and a Seattle newspaper published a similar photo taken by a military contractor.

After Dover Air Force Base, the main port for returning remains, released hundreds of government photos of the ceremonies, the Defense Department ordered yesterday that no more photographs be released. In addition, two employees for defense contractor Maytag Aircraft were fired after the Pentagon complained about a photo of flag-draped caskets taken by one of them that appeared in the Seattle Times.

In March 2003, on the eve of war in Iraq, the Pentagon ordered an end to all media coverage of ceremonies for the returning remains of soldiers killed overseas. Although Dover already had such a policy, the Pentagon action enforced a military-wide ban on images of flag-draped caskets that dated to late 2000 but had not been followed.

With few exceptions, the ban had remained in force until recent days. But last week, about 350 photos from Dover were released under a Freedom of Information Act request by Russ Kick, a First Amendment advocate who runs a Web site called the Memory Hole (www.thememoryhole.org). Dover recommended that Kick's request be denied, but officials at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois authorized the release on appeal. After Kick posted the photos, they appeared on other Web sites, including the Drudge Report.

The sudden spread yesterday of the Dover photos of flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq came a day after Tami Silicio and her husband and co-worker, David Landry, were fired for the photo she took at Kuwait International Airport of caskets in an aircraft. The photo was published Sunday on the front page of the Seattle Times.

"We have terminated two employees in Kuwait who violated Department of Defense and company policy by working together to photograph and publish the flag-draped caskets of our servicemen and women being returned to the United States," said William Silva, president of Maytag Aircraft, the Colorado Springs-based military contractor that employed Silicio and her husband.

According to the Times, Silva said the firing decision was made by the company but the military had "very specific concerns" about the photo. The Pentagon has said that only individual graveside services give the full context of a soldier's sacrifice.

Silicio, a cargo worker who often loaded coffins on military planes bound for the United States, shot the photo in early April, as twin uprisings in Iraq led to a spike in American war dead. She snapped a digital photograph of an aircraft packed with caskets and told her best friend that her photograph of coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq would allow parents of the dead to see that "their children weren't thrown around like a piece of cargo."

Losing her well-paid job in Kuwait was something that Silicio had been very worried about before the photo was published, according to Barry Fitzsimmons, a photo editor at the Times. "She has a mortgage to pay, and she really needs the job," said Fitzsimmons, who said he had a dozen phone conversations and exchanged 40 e-mails with Silicio before the photo was published. He and the newspaper's senior editors wanted to make sure she understood the possible consequences of publication.

"In the end, she felt she would be okay and she would be able to keep her job," Fitzsimmons said. "I think there is a little bit of being naive about the whole thing."

Silicio received no payment, but her name appeared under the photo.

Zuma Press, a photo agency, is handling distribution of the photo. Rights to publish it have been purchased by a weekly newsmagazine, according to Zuma.

Although photographs of flag-draped caskets returning from overseas fighting were common in the 1980s and 1990s, the Bush administration has enforced the ban on such images, saying it reflects families' wishes. Critics of the policy said the administration is trying to airbrush the realities of war.

"I feel if the administration were more sympathetic they would see that this is a positive thing," Silicio said in an e-mail yesterday. "When our loved ones are coming home, the families want to be there with them through the media, coming the whole way home."

Harden reported from Seattle. Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.

Whether or not the coffin of a service member should be shown to the public should be up to the individual family. So if a newspaper/news show wants to put that image up on the screen let them call the mother or father of that fallen soldier/Marine/sailor or airman and ask permission. If the family saws sure go ahead then plaster it all over the airways.

Personally being a Marine myself I hate to think that if I ever pay the ultimate price for my country that pictures of my coffin would be splattered all over the T.V./Newspapers for my Mother and Father to see, let alone my young son.

www.thememoryhole.org/

The FOI recovered picture. That's freedom of information act for those of us advocating that this isn't an issue of fredom of the press. The request was, of course, denied. When the Pentagon was told by Justice that they were going to loose the appeal, they released the photos.

You can see them at the site listed if it hasn't been shut down by fasicsts yet. That's a joke, I'm sure it'll be unintentionally DOSed from all the intrest.

CNN has a slideshow of the photos here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/04/22/mortuary.photos.ap/index.html

You mean for Bush's ego and the oil? Oh, I'm sorry.. you were trying to moralize how great we were for effectively abandoning the people in Afghanistan to rape and torture so we could save the Iraqis from rape and torture. Please, continue.

Probably thought they were making some money for college and going to camp for a weekend now and then like the commercials said. Not be shipped off to some desert indefiniately while the administration scrambles around.

Smash you are an unmitigated ***. The only reason you want the coffins on the TV is because you think it will help your candidate get elected. Everyone knows that servicemembers are being killed over there. hell I have friends that have been killed. You act as if the death toll in Iraq isnt on the news everyday. Showing the coffins of these people doesnt give anyone anymore information than they already have (other than how the perished are getting back to the states) but it very well could be quite distressing for the families involved. Dont these fallen service members deserve some sort of privacy? (no matter who's in the coffin) Some respect for the dead? Dont we as a society owe them that much?

Debate the issue as much as you want. Your against the war fine. Use the death toll the casualty stats all that. Talk about it report it put our spin on it. Whatever. Leave the pictures of my fallen comrades out of it. They paid their dues, and this country owes them more than it can ever repay. One thing we can do is not to torture their family and friends with pictures that do nothing but make a heartbreaking time worse.

Who's my guy? I havent come out for or against any of the candidates. The problem is you are so concerned on getting one or the other elected you fail to see the how your actions may affect the families of these service members.

If the families want their children shown on TV wait for the Military Funeral service. That is when the services pay their respects and honor the fallen. So *^%* you thinking you can speak for the families of the fallen. I would prefer to err on the side that they dont. That mistake can be corrected.

So are you saying here that you'd like to have WWIII? Go to war with every country that we don't have the same views as?



As I said, wake up call. The military's primary reason for existance isn't to put people through college now is it? Anybody shallow enough to think that they had zero chance of heading out to fight really needs to wake up.

Please. This isn't the ole "Why don't we invade China?!" argument. We were in Afghanistan. We were supposed to be the heroes there, overthrowing the oppresive Taliban so the people could live free, remember? Except we pretty much quit as soon as we kicked over the Taliban's blocks so we could run off and invade Iraq and left most of the country in the hands of well armed warlords who openly defy the "government" in Kabul. I bet the people living in slavery under Hazrat Ali are just thrilled that we came in and saved them from the Taliban. Allah bless America.

Why did we effectively abandon Afghanistan to go to Iraq and overthrow Saddam? Are we going to go to war with every country we don't have the same views as? Or just those with oil and unfinished presidental grudges? Oops.. I'm sorry. Saddam was an immediate threat, what with his fertilizer trucks and water filtration plants and other forms of WMDs.

Edited, Fri Apr 23 11:30:30 2004 by Jophiel

ROFL

Man, is that all it takes to convince the "free world" you're a threat?

Quote by Smasharoo:

Very true, but Bush knows that once public sentiment turns sour on the war effort, it will only be a finite time before the country will force him to pull out, thus he tries to downplay the negative. He created the problem, and now he is trying to deal with it.



Take a look at this http://i-cias.com/e.o/iraq_5.htm

I think that this clearly shows that Iraq had problems before the sanctions. I have talk to people who have spent vast amounts of time in Iraq. To me the real problem is that there systems of government(tribal/feudal) were/are 400-500 years less evolved than the western civilizations, and now the western societies are trying to bring them up to date. Difficult! I think much of Africa is in the same boat. Eventually, their political systems will reach the level of the western world, but it will cost a lot of time and blood, just like it did for us.

This very topic is being discussed on CNN right now. Apparently photos can be seen at www.memoryhole.something-or-other. These pics were released under the Freedom of Information Act despite the Pentagon's disapproval.

Totem