Pentagon Rules: No pictures of coffins or damaged vehicles

[UpInArms]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001699490

NEW YORK The expulsion by U.S. military officials of two embedded journalists in Kuwait, reportedly for photographing a shot-up military vehicle, has prompted outrage from Military Reporters and Editors (MRE), which is calling for a change in embed rules that apparently led to the action.

Sig Christenson, MRE president and a military writer with the San Antonio Express-News, said no rule barring photographs of damaged vehicles existed when he first embedded in 2003. He said the alleged rule is one of several that have been added to the embedding program since it first began nearly three years ago, and should be changed.

"This rule does not have any legitimate purpose in preventing future attacks," Christenson said. "I'm pretty sure the rule was not in the agreement I signed. I think the insurgents already know about the vulnerability of the vehicles."

MRE Vice President Jim Crawley, a military writer with MediaGeneral, cited the original embed rule list currently posted by Reporters Without Borders that does not include such a restriction. He also pointed to a number of photos on the U.S. Army and Marines official Web sites that clearly show damaged vehicles.

"It is unrealistic to have in there that you can't take any pictures of damaged vehicles," Crawley said. "Especially damaged vehicles being sent back to the states."

...more...

[Angry Girl]

1. Remember Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena the U.S. troops tried to kill?

And her unfortunate friend, whom they did kill....

We never DID get to see an unadulterated photo of the bullet-ridden vehicle, did we?

[VaYallaDawg]

2. I'd be surprised if there's even one US vehicle in Iraq that

hasn't been shot up to some degree. What kind of stupid rule is this? Again, we can't let Joe and Suzy Citizen know what this war is really like, it might scare the bejeebus out of them.

[teryang]

3. Suppression of imagery fundamental to propaganda effort at...

...home.

War is based on age old mythology romanticizing combat and warriors. When the myth is cut away by showing the devastation, death and cruelty of war, the ethical questions concerning the costs and ostensible potential benefits of the effort become an unavoidable priority.

In other words, reason takes precedence over madness, greed, egotism, and other irrational impulses such as unquestioning patriotic conformism. When the unsentimental cost benefit analysis is posed in wholly elective,fruitless and unwanted endeavors like Iraq, the obvious response is to get out!

It didn't take many images during the Vietnam conflict to turn millions against the war.

[Porcupine]

4. Yup, American soldiers just here to hand out twinkies......

no need to show the images the rest of the world sees of twisted US armor and maimed Iraqi children.

Why do they hate us?

[tirechewer]

5. Typical Bush thinking....

The Bush administration has the fantasy that if people in the US don't see soldiers in coffins or badly damaged vehicles that they can extrapolate a soldier's death from, that the war in Iraq will somehow pass unnoticed.

They have been doing this since day one. AP had to file a lawsuit in order to be able to photograph flag draped coffins or military funerals stateside, even if the family of the deceased wanted the pictures taken.

Bush and his band of idiots seems to think if it's out of sight it's out of mind. They didn't want the American public to think about the mounting death toll of either US troops or the carnage being committed on Iraqi civilians.

You have to go to foreign news sources to get an accurate picture of what the war is actually doing in Iraq. If you depend on most US media, they try to keep it a soft blur. This is in stark contrast to the coverage of the war in Viet Nam.

The thing is, though, it isn't working. The resistance to the war in Iraq started sooner than it did to Viet Nam, is growing faster and seems to be made up of all different age groups instead of mostly young adults.

Sprinkle that on your Cheerios, George.