The image turning America against Bush

[JoFerret]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=514700

The photographs that President George Bush does not want the American public to see show the flag-draped coffins containing the bodies of American servicemen and women - dying in Iraq at a rate of between four and six a day - being returned to the US and to their families.

Aware of the power of these pictures and their potential to inflict political damage on Mr Bush as he campaigns for re-election, his chief political adviser Karl Rove is desperate that they should not be published

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[Kagemusha]

1. You mean the one Drudge says are space shuttle deaths?

Just wondering.

[frylock]

9. how many astronauts were on that shuttle?

Eighteen? Thirty? Drudge needs to get his shit together.

[skooooo]

12. 40 - 50 astronauts crammed into that shuttle!!

Damn! All the time I thought there was maybe 5 or 6!~

[happynewyear]

17. boy that picture says a thousand words

I don't think I need to read anything more about it. This whole thing is a nightmare. Bush should be ashamed. What else can I say?

[Kool Kitty]

22. And Blitzer-that capable propagandist for the

misadministration-said the same thing at the end of his show. He said the Pentagon reported that most of these pictures are of the dead shuttle astronauts. How friggin' many people were on the shuttle?

[arcane1]

2. how is this for a telling passage:

from the article:

Only Rupert Murdoch's Fox News has declined to show the pictures or report any discussion about the White House's decision to prevent their publication.

[NMDemDist2]

3. does this mean the freepers don't know there's a controversy? n/t

[arcane1]

5. only libruls care about dead soldiers

freepers prefer to make more of them

[PfcHammer]

8. why should they care ? rumball prolly thinks dead people are fungible

[JoFerret]

4. Absolutely

that is a damning revealing detail.

[sablescort]

6. well Faux did post the pics on their site

but I'm not gonna post this at the risk of getting this thread locked.

(to clarify my position...I'm not a fan of Faux News either)

[maddezmom]

7. Has Faux shown the pics on the news?

[sablescort]

10. it was on their website eom

[Bundbuster]

11. These pictures

[AlCzervik]

13. I thought this passage

conveyed what should be screaned over here but the so called liberal media doesnt run this much.


Mr Bush admitted this himself, saying recently there was "no question it's been a tough, tough, tough series of weeks for the American people". Despite this, Mr Bush has not yet attended a single funeral service for any of those killed in Iraq ú something that has outraged many of the families. Polls suggest that public approval of the President's handling of the war and the occupation is down from 51 per cent to 44 per

[skooooo]

14. You know what makes these pictures...

...even more depressing and sad is the aneseptic environment you see the coffins in...surrounded by metal, lined up in a row, being treated as mass-produced products almost.

That's how it strikes me anyway...

[goforit]

25. Just the way Adolph would want it.

[PsychoDad]

26. Strikes me that way also...

A sanitized war... No blood, no bodies for the folks at home to worry about. Wait till we start to see the tens of thousands of injured from Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Lorien]

31. One of the few things * has succeeded in "manufacturing"

along with worldwide contempt, increasing terrorism, pollution, death from malnutrition and curable diseases, joblessness, the undereducated, etc. etc. :-(

[NewDemOrder]

15. Ya gotta love the independent.co.uk

I just hope they don't beat up Kerry as much when he wins this November.

[JoFerret]

16. The home of Robert Fisk

.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

18. This is the front page image of all the broadsheet papers

over here.

Sadly the Mirror (left-leaning tabloid) has gone with "Leslie Ash Breaks Rib in Sex Romp".

[evworldeditor]

19. Omaha World-Herald Publishes War Dead Photo...

on tonight's front page. Usually a very conservative paper in a strongly Republican state, the Herald's actions tonight signal to me that the tide is changing.

They continue to publish right-wing columnists, but you'll also see Krugman, Friedman, Herbert and other "liberal" columnists. The letters to the editor -- called the Public Pulse -- continue to carry angry letters from both pro-Bush and anti-Bush supporters, but I sense the anti-Bush letters predominate... at least they do in terms of reason and logic. The pro-Bush letters only seem to manage the lame "support the president" line.

Finally, the young man who aerates and fertilizes my lawn has also done a 180 degree turn politically. A year ago, he was very pro-Bush. This week he told me he will vote of Kerry.

There is hope in Nebraska! Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson... are you listening?

-------------------------------
http://www.evworld.com

[PROGRESSIVE1]

23. Bush better learn that he can't hide the truth!

[JoFerret]

20. Bring out your dead

Another great story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1202335,00.html
Pictures of flag-draped coffins could kill Bush's re-election hopes

Mark Lawson
Saturday April 24, 2004
The Guardian

American elections are frequently a duel between two photographs. The candidate tries to find the right picture, the snap which encapsulates his campaign: the young Bill Clinton shaking hands with JFK, or Ronald Reagan with his hand on his heart in front of a flag. His opponent hopes for the emergence of the wrong picture, the snap they didn't want on the poster: Gary Hart with a floozy on a yacht; Michael Dukakis looking like an Action Man model in a tank.
George Bush has so far struggled to locate his chosen photo: the turkey he was pictured serving in Iraq proved embarrassingly to be fake, the "Mission Accomplished" banner under which he parked his plane on an aircraft carrier now looks ludicrously premature. President Bush's handlers might have consoled themselves that there was at least no risk of a bimbo picture coming out but, this week, there was much worse. America started to see the photographs Bush was dedicated to suppressing.

Enclosed in the patriotic blaze of Old Glory, the coffins lie in rows in a hanger at Dover airforce base in Delaware. Each flagged casket contains the remains of another member of the American services killed in Iraq. The Pentagon refused to allow photo-opportunities for the soldiers' last posts.

But, in a development which must have made Bush wish he lived under the British system of state secrecy, 350 of these censored images of the dead have been released to an internet lobbyist under freedom of information legislation.

This is a defeat for what was surely one of the most brutish manoeuvres of modern politics. The White House has claimed that they were protecting the dignity of the dead and the privacy of their families, but many families were desperate for their lost to have their moment on the evening news.

The truth is that the invisibility of the military fallen was a decision driven purely by spin.

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[NMDemDist2]

21. ahh thank heavens the UK still has a free press

hope we can get one too some day :(

[2Design]

29. In that guardian story they mention montage....any idea where that is

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1202335,00.html
The guardian story mentions

"The publication of the cadaver montage - in which Bush's face is made up of squares containing smiles and stares of military men and women who are now all dust - threatens to become one of the most powerful propaganda images in history."

Any idea where this montage might be posted or what news story it was in...... I would be really interested in finding that....

[wabeewoman]

30. I think Bartcop had it up

he had the first pictures I saw of the caskets as well.

[NYC]

32. Ask Wonk.

He has a copy.

[KTM]

33. Here ya go

It was on Michael Moore's site, apparently, but the link is not working. Found this fast link to it in the Google cache.

It's also here and is mirrored here, with a working link to the 1890 x 2209 version (huge, about 4.5 Megs).

[2Design]

34. Thank you Boy does that hit you All those smiling face NO More smiles

Wow That is incredible....when I see all the smiling faces and know someone will miss that face, the laughter, the tears, the hugs.....
war really sucks.....especially....when I keep thinking there must be a better way.....

poor people become criminals...both in this country and outside of it..... if the wealth was spread out more evenly....instead of the top 5% having most of the wealth........

What makes this administration or any administration think they can straighten out the world....when we have so much crime in this country....... many other countries are so much safer...... and the safe ones.......don't have the death penalty....they must know something much better than we do.....

many are more socialist....and take care of health care and have other ways of helping people.....no theirs is not perfect either.... but our cities are scary......

why aren't we here in this country trying to improve our own problems......

all those smiling faces......gone.....that is a crime......a war crime.....he is right he is a war president.....he is the war criminal.....

[goforit]

24. He knows he is a murderer.......and can't handle the reminders.

After all isn't he the leader of Pat Robinson's
Christian Coalition?

[sampsonblk]

27. Fox "News" - unafraid?

Why are they afraid of a few pictures?

Why are people dumb enough to still believe Faux News is fair and balanced?? This is still America, isn't it?

[2Design]

28. Ted Kopple on Nightline just turned the tables on Bush on this

Discussion goinf on here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1464701