No cameras for US war dead's return

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

Do most countries have a policy such as this? What about Pakistan or Canada? Just wondering, out of curiosity. i am not trying to criticize this policy; maybe from the perspectives of the family members of the deceased, it makes sense. It helps that there are political benefits as well.

No cameras for US war dead’s return, Nick Childs, BBC, 4 November 2003

The downing of the US army Chinook helicopter in Iraq on Sunday was the single most devastating incident involving US forces in Iraq since the start of the war.

But the media is being denied access to the return to the United States of the bodies of those who died - because of a Pentagon ban on such coverage. The policy has led to some charges of censorship and concern that the decision has been taken because of the mounting death toll in Iraq.

Pentagon officials deny the accusations and say the policy stretches back to 1991, although there have been exceptions over the years.

Ever since the Vietnam war, it has been assumed - in the United States and abroad - that American public opinion cannot stomach high casualties.

The emotional outpourings at ceremonies for the return of the dead from subsequent US military disasters abroad - like the bombing of the US marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 - only seem to reinforce that perception.

In 1991, with the first Gulf War, the Pentagon decided to ban such ceremonies.

The policy was not always enforced and, for a while, the US air base at Ramstein in Germany - through which many US casualties in foreign conflicts pass - was not included. But that changed three years ago, and the policy was reaffirmed at the start of the current Gulf conflict.

In 1991, a number of media organisations unsuccessfully sued the Pentagon over the decision. The critics say all this is for political reasons.

The Pentagon says it is to protect the families involved and it is up to them whether they allow media access at individual funerals.

Regardless of the Pentagon’s policy, there is no doubt that the mounting death toll in Iraq is having a political impact.

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I thought there were ceremonies for some soldiers who had died a while back but within 2002-2003 period, the bodies were in germany for sometime and there was some ceremony there.

I dont know if there are any specific standards. maybe someone with more military knowledge can tell you.

3

I don't think it's right to televise such events.. although the correct number of casualties should be kept and reported to the media.

4

I have mixed feelings on this topic, i think the heroes of any nation should be shared with the nation, in life and in death. if they sacrificed their lives for the sake of their country, the country should honor them publically in a ceremony that honors them and share that with the whole country.

on the other hand, the families may not want all the pomp and circumstance, and may want to do a private small ceremony.

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Just about everything else is televised these days they have hour long specials for some folk and weeks/months for Lady 'Die' why not some soldiers?

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families' wishes perhaps?

7

Well if all the families expressed this wish then who's to argue.

8

they could be taped and shown in a memorial kinda show when all combat has actually ended.. to honor those who gave their lives for the victory.. not just announcing 'Mission Accmomplished" for political gains..

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Babay thats true but if i had someone in my family who gave his/her life for my country, i would wantto see the nation honor them and appreciate the support and sentiments when the family is dealing with the loss of a family member.

Aside from family preferances i dont know what other logical reasons could be there.

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i understand family reasons and i respect those reasons only.

During the invasion, there was a camera attached somewhere on the roof of a hotel in Baghdad (a hotel where most journalists were staying). That camera stayed on 24/7 so us armchair generals could get a bird's eye view of how the missiles look as they streak through the Iraqi sky. If the family reason applies, wouldn't the above have been offensive to some Iraqi families as well especially to those who lost loved ones during the conflict? Maybe they would not have liked to have known that a global camera was on that was capturing their city being bombarded.

An honest question, no provoking intended.

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could it be offensive, it could be, but then thats a diff topic isn't it? here we are talkiung about US soldiers who died during their tour of duty.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
i understand family reasons and i respect those reasons only.

During the invasion, there was a camera attached somewhere on the roof of a hotel in Baghdad (a hotel where most journalists were staying). That camera stayed on 24/7 so us armchair generals could get a bird's eye view of how the missiles look as they streak through the Iraqi sky. If the family reason applies, wouldn't the above have been offensive to some Iraqi families as well especially to those who lost loved ones during the conflict? Maybe they would not have liked to have known that a global camera was on that was capturing their city being bombarded.

An honest question, no provoking intended.
[/QUOTE]

No provoking intended? Hmm... I wonder. I just don't recall the camera on the roof of the hotel in Bagdad zooming in for closeups of Iraqi dead bodies. (Of course, I'm old and memory fades). I do recall Saddam TV broadcasting pictures of dead American soldiers strewn haphazardly on the floor of some morgue with some guys poking at them though.

Besides...I thought the Iraqi information minister said the pictures of US troops storming Bagdad were taken in Hollywood rather than from cameras on the hotel roof. A further besides, somehow or other I also have a distinct recollection that in some middle eastern cultures, parading the dead bodies through the streets for public view is the norm.

Everybody should be allowed to honor their dead in their own way don't you think? You should probably be glad the press is not allowed to freely film and display coffins and corpses of dead American servicemen. The sight of anti-Americans cheering and celebrating in certain countries as they watch the display on Al Jazeera might just solidify American anger toward a whole populace and lead to implementation of US force in ways you might not like.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by myvoice: *
**No provoking intended? Hmm... I wonder.*
[/quote]

Please keep wondering if you want but "No provoking intended" means exactly that.

[quote]
A further besides, somehow or other I also have a distinct recollection that in some middle eastern cultures, parading the dead bodies through the streets for public view is the norm.
[/quote]

That's their norm - are you holding me personally accountable for this custom ?

[quote]
*Everybody should be allowed to honor their dead in their own way don't you think? You should probably be glad the press is not allowed to freely film and display coffins and corpses of dead American servicemen. The sight of anti-Americans cheering and celebrating in certain countries as they watch the display on Al Jazeera might just solidify American anger toward a whole populace and lead to implementation of US force in ways you might not like.
[/QUOTE]
*
Yes, i agree, everyone should be allowed to "honor their dead in their own ways". i also wish we would extend that courtesy to others when we kill their dead soldiers.

Then again, i could be wrong, that's just me - if the Pentagon has given orders for no cameras to be on solely because of the family's requests, then who am i to argue. i guess it couldn't hurt either that in the middle of the largest poll slump for Dubby, such pictures wouldn't go down too well for election year.

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Excerpts:

…] On December 21 1989, President George Bush senior was holding a press conference about the US intervention in Panama as the first American fatalities from the conflict were arriving at Dover.

With General Manuel Noriega still at large and half of America believing the military intervention could not be regarded a success while he remained so, it was a politically sensitive time. At the beginning of the briefing the president had told reporters he was suffering from neck pain. At the end he did a duck walk to illustrate his stiffness. That’s when “the goof-a-meter went off the charts”, as one correspondent put it.

Unbeknown to the White House, three major news networks had moved to a split screen. While the president shared his light-hearted moment with the press corps on one half, America’s dead were arriving in caskets on the other. It was a public relations disaster. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater described the coverage as “outrageous and unfair” and vowed to express his “extreme dissatisfaction” to the channels concerned.

Less than a year later the White House decreed a ban on traditional military ceremonies and media coverage marking the return of the bodies of US soldiers to Dover. It was an abrupt shift in policy for what had become a national wartime ritual. Along with yellow ribbons and flag waving, the scenes from Dover were part of the American war experience.

For the next 12 years the ban was largely ignored, even after it was extended to all military bases during the last days of the Clinton administration. But this March, shortly before the war began, the Pentagon handed down a directive that made it perfectly clear it expected the policy to be heeded.

Bush writes to each family, but his friends say he was offended by what he regarded as Clinton’s occasionally gushing public performances, which he felt turned private grief into political gain. The trouble for Bush is that the public liked Clinton for his ability to empathise. Bush’s apparent reluctance to publicly identify with the dead is beginning to look like a desire to disassociate himself from the failure of the mission. When news of the downed Chinook came through on Sunday he stayed in his ranch and let defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld meet the press.

“The public wants the commander-in-chief to have proper perspective and keep his eye on the big picture and the ball,” says Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. “At the same time, they want their president to understand the hardship and sacrifice many Americans are enduring at a time of war. And we believe he is striking that balance.”

Others disagree. They say the growing number of casualties is the ball, which is precisely why the Pentagon enforced the ban on coverage at Dover. “You can call it news control or information control of flat-out propaganda,” says Christopher Simpson, a communications professor at Washington’s American University. “Whatever you call it, this is the most extensive effort at spinning a war that the department of defence has ever undertaken in this country. Casualties are a very important media football in any war [and] this is a qualitative change.”

Either way, implementing the ruling has had an effect. For the first time since war in the television era, the sight of flag-covered caskets arriving to the salute of military colleagues and the tears of mourning relatives are no longer part of the national narrative. Bush has not attended the funeral of a single soldier slain in the war and refers to the casualties only in general terms. Without Dover, there can be no Dover test.

…] Yesterday, Cary Brassfield woke up to the news that two more soldiers had died in Iraq and the administration promise that its campaign in Iraq will be unrelenting. “The ones that are speaking do not have the same stakes that we have,” says Artimus’s father. “They have their political careers. But our homes are being torn apart.”

Don’t mention the dead, Gary Younge, The Guardian, 7 November 2003