Professor Sues Pentagon for Coffin Photos

[npincus]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2004/oct/04/100402238.html

A journalism professor sued the government Monday to force the Defense Department to release pictures of flag-draped coffins of soldiers arriving in the United States from wars overseas.

Ralph Begleiter, a professor at the University of Delaware and a former world affairs correspondent for CNN, filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of government photos and video of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The Pentagon has refused to release those photos, saying it has begun enforcing a policy installed in 1991 intended to respect the privacy of the families of the dead soldiers.

Critics counter the government is trying to hide the human cost of the war from the public.

"They're public records," Begleiter's attorney, Daniel Mach, said in a telephone interview. "This is about the public's right to know the implications of U.S. foreign policy and to assess the price of war."


In my opinion. the release or LEAK (even better) of flag-draped coffin photos is the missing ingredient to send MANY intellectually-lazy, ambivalent fence-sitters running to OUR side: image-shock therapy, I call it. The release of coffin photos a few months ago caused a major hemorrhage in support for the war at that time, and that has has been eroding ever since. But, NOT ENOUGH. We need an injection of reality again, to shock and scare Americans who are in denial about the war and are buying the rosy pictures the Chimpy gang portrays. VIDEO of unloading coffins would be even better- a picture is worth a thousand (or more) words. How ironic that the dead can cut through the lies of the living.

If you don't buy what I say about substantial numbers of Americans who still think the war is going 'better' than is being portrayed by our campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll: "43 percent said Mr. Kerry made it (the Iraq war) sound worse". Unbelievable.