The Obama administration's freak-out, as expressed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, over the Associated Press Agency's belated circulation of a photograph of a dying US soldier in Afghanistan, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, is the latest of example of the hypocrisy of US authorities who claim to be concerned about the feelings of American military families, while really simply desiring to censor the war's horrors from the eyes of the American people.
The truth: Americans until only the last 18 years, have been able to see the carnage of war as it has been felt by our own troops from as long ago as there were cameras. Pioneering photographer and war chronicler Matthew Brady brought home the horrors of the US Civil War with photos like this one of dead Union and Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Antietam.
In World War II, while the military tried to prevent publication of the photos of dead American troops at first, by 1944, President Roosevelt lifted the ban, hoping that the images would fire up American resolve on the home front.
Although it was a much less popular war, photos of American dead were plentiful from the Korean War.
Vietnam was awash in press photographers, and the Pentagon never banned them from depicting American casualties.
In fact, when American policy-makers talk about the "lesson of Vietnam," they generally aren't talking about the real lesson of not sending American troops to fight unpopular wars, or of not intervening on the side of corrupt regimes in wars of national liberation, or of not fighting in wars where there is no chance of the US winning. They're talking about the "lesson" of not letting the American people learn the real nature and cost of the war in question.
That's why journalists -- and particularly American journalists -- since Vietnam have been kept on short leashes, and why they are vetted by Pentagon officials and hired media "experts" before they are allowed to be "embedded" with units in the field. It's why the Reagan administration had a navy destroyer turn its guns on, and threaten to sink a small boat carrying reporters trying to make its way to Grenada to cover the US invasion of that island. And it's why since the Gulf War in 1990-91, photographs of American battlefield dead have been banned.
AP deserves credit for finally breaking the ban and offering its photo of a dying soldier, shot in a firefight with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan--even if the news agency did wait three weeks to offer the photo to subscribers. The real shame is that so few American newspapers and electronic media organizations chose to run that photo.
Gates claims that AP was "insensitive" to the dead soldier's relatives, but it's hard to see how that can be. The real insensitive thing would be to try to hide his death from the public, as the Pentagon wanted to do. Hell, if the Afghan War is worth fighting, it should be worth dying for, and if it's worth dying for, and if young soldier Bernard gave his life for his country, his death and the manner of his death should not be hidden from his countrypeople. We should all see the terrible price he paid acting in our name.
Were the photographers and news organizations who showed American soldiers dead on the beach in the Pacific in World War II being insensitive?
Were the photographers and news organizations who showed America's dead in Vietnam being insensitive?
Were the photographers and news organizations who showed America's dead in Korea being insensitive?
Was the photographer and news organization which dared to break the ban and publish a photo of America's dead in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq being insensitive?
I don't think so.
Moreover, there is a terrible double standard at work here, if news organizations accept the censorship or deem it inappropriate to show dead American bodies, but go ahead and show dead bodies of the enemy -- photographs that the media seem to have no problem publishing (though surely it must be painful for their families).
After all, if all we see are dead enemy fighters, it might give the false impression that the war in question -- in this case the Afghanistan War, or what might now be called Obama's War -- is a one-sided affair where the only terrible casualties are those suffered by the "enemy," not by "our boys."
Enough with the censorship! If we are going to be a warlike nation, if we are going to have a public that cheers everytime the government ships off men and women to fight and kill overseas in countries that most Americans cannot even locate on a globe, then let's make sure that everyone at least gets to see the blood and gore in full, including our own, and of course, also the civilian casualties of our military.
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
John Eskow: Another Scream Unheard, Another Corpse Unseen, Another Day of News
We're becoming stupider and stupider about the war in direct proportion to the programming we receive from the mainstream media.
Eric Boehlert: Little Green Footballs, Staged War Photos, and the Story the Press Won't Tell
The right-wing blogs' occasional 'scoops' are celebrated by the MSM, but their day-to-day conspiracy theories, along with their unapologetic hatred, are politely ignored.
Presenting photos of the true horror of war and the cost from the field and in the hospitals is actually the only real way to get americans to understand what their trillion dollars is being spent for. The trillion dollars is incidental compared to the human waste on both sides of the fence. Mr. Bush engaged and pushed through a war that was without just cause. After eight years the horror continues. Maybe the young troop's name did not need to appear with the picture of his death. But, it is for americans to decide if congress' penchant for supplying money to war profiteers as a never ending bleeding source is really worth it. I think it is time to bring the troops home.
This is Joshua Bernard, he was a Marine Corporal and he died on August 14th, 2009 after being wounded in Afghanistan :
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/minor/files/2009/09/joshua-boy.jpg
What about that can't you understand without seeing some blood?
That's why Dave mentioned all the censorship that happened after the Vietnam War. The public didn't protest because we were losing the war - the public protested because we were seeing our boys die in a war that didn't effect us. While Cpl. Bernard's sacrifice will forever be known, to say that a photo of him in uniform conveys the same message and tone about war as the photo of his death is just wrong.
As for his family, while it must be hard to see photos of his death flying around, Cpl Bernard's image is not owned by his family and they will have to learn to accept that his image will hopefully spark what needs to happen to get us out of this war. I know that sounds harsh but this is the real world and he knew what he was signing up for when he enlisted.
However, censorship is widespread and rampant, not to mention disinformation. Just checkout sites like ProjectCensored.org for further examples.
Yes, that was the lesson of VietNam. Allowing a public to actually see casualties on all sides, day in and out, year after year, finally brought home to many that conflict is not glorious but ugly and obscene. It doesn't matter whether the cause is just or not, war is what it is. Had there been cameras in the time of Hannibal, we might have reached our fill of death and destruction by now and have grown, rather than making it into this cultural thing of worship.
Eisenhower - "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Don't let the masses avoid the reality of the wars, until they are over.
Dave Lindorff
I agree with your point of view. America, the general populace, if it
doesn't have "sons and daughters" invested and doesn't see that
those "investments" are in peril, it has no concept of what war is.
Like their other investments, the "return on investment" is to
continue their own lives uninterrupted with a few perks thrown in
along the way.
How long did it take for the public just to ok a draw-down of some
troops in Iraq? How many had to die for that?
Thanks for presenting the cold, hard, facts.