Killed in Action (Media and lack of images of flag-draped coffins)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/981889.asp?0cv=CB10

This morning’s press release from U.S. Central Command brought bad news yet again. “One 220th Military Police Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded in an improvised explosive device attack in the Baghdad area at approximately 7:50 a.m. Oct. 17,” it read when I logged on.

DEATH ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE arriving almost daily for American soldiers killed in Iraq. It’s hard to put a weekly average on the number of dead because some weeks there are no casualties. But by my unofficial tally, somewhere between three and six soldiers die every week in Iraq.

And yet, it often feels like the American public has no sense of the steady trickle of killed and wounded. I’ve had some people tell me that it’s our fault; the media are not covering the deaths the way we did during the war. Others say it’s because the numbers are so small compared to, say, Vietnam, the news doesn’t catch people’s attention.

I’ll offer a different reason: there are no pictures. As much as I hate to admit this as a print reporter, images do sear into people’s mind more than words. Nick Ut’s photograph of 9-year-old Kim Phuc became synonymous with the Vietnam War. She was the terrified little girl running naked, covered in napalm. Television images of caskets and body bags also changed public opinion about the war.

Be sure to read the letters at bottom of page - two are very good.

[wtmusic]

1. 'if the media were to show the offloading of remains

it would create pressure on the families to be there when the body arrives rather than await delivery in the privacy of their homes.'

Well. We certainly want to keep this suffering in the privacy of people's homes.

[benfranklin1776]

4. Real compassionate aren't they? Their motto is out of sight out of mind.

The "if the media were to show the offloading of remains it would create pressure on the families to be there when the body arrives rather than await delivery in the privacy of their homes" is just yet another exercise in Pentagonspeak to obscure unpleasant reality and prevent damaging political consequences. The only pressure they are trying to relieve is that which the sight of a steady stream of coffins would place on Junior to explain why those people had to die in his needless, senseless war.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. You kow the Army knows

one reason for the resistance to Nam was the constant trickle of
troops

The policy was changed by Bush '41, Clinton changed it, not that
Dubya would have kept Dover AFB open if Clnton had.

reality is those in power, with few exceptions, truly do not care
for the troops, dead or alive.

Nadin

Navy Wife

[izzie]

5. Some congress men rode out of Iraq with body bags that.....

they had to sit right next to. Who was that as he talked about it but I do not recall where he said it. I bet it was on c-spen

[dArKeR]

3. 'Bush in Action' is a better description of what's happening. Cover-up

so no one sees. I think it's the Christian thing to do too! Pretend it never happened.