If the pissants can't see it, it ain't happening

Photo from WW2 Database, The Battle of Tarawa. 1 of 24. Good slide show.

Americablog

Bush now banning photo journalism of wounded troops

We quite literally have a government that no longer believes in the very freedoms it claims our troops are dying for.

NYTimes. Am I the only one who sees the awful irony that this article is in the "Media & Advertising" section?

Capturing the brutal realities of war is a tradition in this country dating back at least to Matthew Brady, and it is undoubtedly part of why Americans, regardless of their politics, have come to know and revere the sacrifices that generations of soldiers have made on their behalf.

When this war began, the government attempted to manage images by banning photographs of coffins returning to United States soil. If the government chooses to overmanage the wages of war in Iraq, there is a real danger that when this new generation of veterans, whose ranks grow every day, could come home to a place where their fellow Americans have little idea what they have gone through.

Photos like the one above were not printed in the media until very late in the war when it was apparent that we were winning. There were two reasons for this: the government was afraid they would turn public opnion against the war, just like now, and, even though there was a draft, they were afraid it might hurt recruiting efforts, just like now.

We haven't seen battle carnage in Iraq on the scale of some of the WWII battles like Tarawa. Yet. Looks like we might not if Bush has his way.

When the Green Zone, sort of a plush Dien Bien Phu, falls, we may see some gleeful photos from photogs embedded with the 'insurgents'.