The Pentagon has moved to block any images of the dead arriving home.

Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins

Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.


To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

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DEAD AT DOVER PHOTOS HIT INTERNET; CONTROVERSY OVER SHOWING IRAQ CASUALTIES INTENSIFIES

Hundreds of photos capturing flag-draped caskets carrying dead soldiers from Iraq have hit the Internet.

The Pentagon has moved to block any and all images of the dead arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home to the Defense Department's largest mortuary.

But in the Internet Era, information and images flow without respect to government decree.

Dover handles most, if not all, military personnel killed overseas.

Early Thursday, hundreds of emotion-swirling photos were unleashed online.

On the core crass political manipulation level, it is more than bothersome - as if lack of photos means lack of dead.

On the greater level, it is important for Americans to see that those who fall in battle are treated with dignity and respect. It is important for those who has lost family members in this and any war to see that their loved one is being treated honorably. The pictures posted here make my eyes well up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1454889

Fought for and got 361 pics released! FOIA in action.

This is what our countrymen need to see..

Carnage coming home under the hand of Bush.

While Bush lazily gazes at wetlands with his mother on Earth Day.

US military has fought AGAINST militarism and fascism in two World Wars and one Cold War by proxy.
US troops being ordered to close a free press, USMC demanding Arab tv crews out of Fallujah, the Office of Strategic Influence/OSI was going to employ agents to plant disinfo about the war on terrorism in the world's media-but the last we heard about OSI was that they never opened. No honoring the fallen, more censorship-that's not democratic at all:crazy:

Our soldiers are suffering immeasurably. The wounded should be hospitalized until they are able to be sent home. Instead, they are ordered back to duty in Iraq unhealed, broken and depressed.

Not surprising the military suicide rate is spiking uncontrollably as our soldiers haven't a voice speaking on their behalf stateside.

We don't want to upset the public? Republicans are liars. They started with a lie, and now every single action that they take is an effort to cover their lies. Nothing they do is an honest attempt at serving the people of our country. Even if they were inclined to do the right things for the people of our country, they could not because they are too busy thinking of ways to cover-up the evil things they do. These people are rotten to the core.

that these photos upset the families and invade their privacy. Of course it doesn't wash, but it is what they keep repeating.

The Repug Senator who defended this on Good Morning America yesterday went on and on about how this rule protected the families from trauma. However, he felt the need to mention all the "work" that had to be done on some of the bodies at Dover, and that some soldiers "came home in more than one box", statements I found much more cruel and horrifying than any of these photos.

I can't say for certain how I would feel if one of my sons were killed in combat, but I really believe that it would give me comfort to see him being treated so gently and compassionately by his fellow soldiers, and I am certain that I would want as many people as possible to be able to witness and honor his sacrifice. Maybe others feel differently, but that's how I feel.

I understand there is good and bad in all organizations. But this rouge government representing us is a cancerous magpie that has metastasized to an all encompassing body corrupt.

How long are we going to tolerate our country going untreated before we remove this malignancy from the taxpayer trough?