No news is good news?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1106/dailyUpdate.html

Editor and Publisher reports that many US newspapers have begun reporting all US military deaths in Iraq, not just those the Pentagon attributes to combat or hostile action. On Monday, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post all cited the number of total US deaths in Iraq – 378 or 379 as of Monday, in addition to the killed-in-action number that the Pentagon reports. The Post also reported the total number of wounded, 2155. In late October, Editor and Publisher had first raised the issue of the way casualties in Iraq were being underreported by the media.

The Toronto Star reported Sunday on the Pentagon's efforts to keep the cost of war out of sight of the American public. For instance, body bags, as they were called during the Vietnam War, are now called "transfer tubes." No TV cameras are allowed to cover the arrival of the dead of wounded at Dover Airforce Base. Although this policy has been in place since the first Gulf War, it has only been consistently applied since last March. Reuters reports that this policy also is now in effect at Ramstein Air Force Base in Southwest Germany.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) says the policy was created out of respect for relatives, but others have criticize the lack of media access, arguing the DoD's aim is to prevent the public from seeing large numbers of coffins that could turn public opinion against the war. "You can argue both sides," said one US military official who asked not to be identified. "Some say Americans need to see this, this is factual and the public needs to see (the coffins). Yet you also think of the mom of a killed soldier and the trauma of seeing television pictures of her son being repatriated."

But Helen Thomas of Hearst Newspapers writes that the ban is misguided.

I can understand why the White House and the Pentagon want to shut down coffin coverage on the nightly news. The photos would be disturbing to anyone and – if the war goes on much longer – politically damaging to the president. But the families of the fallen Americans should not have to grieve alone. We can only share by knowing.

more

[Newsjock]

1. Check your local newspaper

Every day, the AP moves a summary of fatalities and injuries in Iraq, and this information is available to every newspaper that subscribes to the AP. (That's just about every daily paper of any size.)

If your local paper isn't running the death toll every day (or almost every day -- even we cut it every once in a while), call your paper and politely ask them to include this important information.

[saigon68]

2. Bodies spirited back in under cover of darkness

Disgusting------ This will backfire on the Chicken Hawks

[izzie]

3. Maybe no split screens with Bush and coffins but

I think this will turn out to be even worse. What you do not see become more a picture in your mind, and it works like the terror thing. The Bush and Co. have us looking behind every bush(that is not a pun) for a Arab with a box cutter and now coffins with flags come to your mind every time a man is killed.And that works with the Right Wing also.It is a human thing to just do it.If we saw it every day it would get dull but this way it does not, as we have yet to see it.

[NNN0LHI]

6. There is truth in what you say my friend

It is like the man behind the curtain.

Don

[0007]

9. The administration plays to keep Americans ignorant.

Your right on izzie.

Ignorance is not bliss!

[meegbear]

4. This is disturbing ...

these men and women died for our country and * treats them like an inconvenience. These people deserve the repsect and dignity given to all military personnel.

[papau]

5. Good point - the AP is now giving total dead and wounded - so why

do the local papers and newscasts hide it?

[NNN0LHI]

7. I think that has been AP's policy from the onset of this fiasco? n/t

[ze_dscherman]

8. Steve Bell's comment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1077364,00.html

[Bragi]

10. What about the wounded who later die?

There was an article I read a few days back (can't remember where) that speculated on why those listed as wounded never seem to die.

According to the article, even with modern medicine, it is unlikely that every wounded soldier survives their wounds. Yet the death toll numbers are never revised to include wounded soldiers who die later on, once they are removed from the battlefield.

I'm not at all wanting to sound goulish here, but it strikes me that this may be another way Bushco tries to hide the cost of this war in terms of American lives lost.

- b