(no subject)

[taerowyn]

Pictures truly are worth a thousand words.

I can't not touch on this. I've been following the controversy a bit.

"We must pay attention to the privacy of the families. That's what the policy is based on," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters, describing that as "our first priority."

I'm sorry, I just can't bring myself to buy that. There is no personal identifiers, where is the invasion of privcacy?

"Quite frankly, we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified."

I think it's amazing to see these images. I think the attention is totally warranted - these men and women died for their country. A country which, thanks to these images, can actually see them receiving all the respect and ceremony that they deserve. I don't think you get much more dignified than that.

Here's yet another "thousand words", though the caption is wrong according to a later entry...it's not just US soldiers, but from the whole coalition including the UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Poland, Spain, and more. I think that actually makes it more poignant.

***Edit***
OK, so the pictures are worth a thousand "different" words. Or, technically, two thousand words since some of the images are NASA while others are soldiers (once the honor guard is in camos vs. dress, I assume). The point behind the whole controversy still stands despite the mix-up.

Comments

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

I think it's amazing to see these images.

I do, too.

Notice how, in the absence of reporters, crowds, and cameras, the remains of these men are being treated with pomp, dignity, and respect?

Yassin's followers mobbed his corpse and stuck their fingers into his brainpan.

That says something.

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Scratch that. Word is that these are actually the remains of the Coumbia astronauts, not Iraqi war dead.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

Only the first set is (about the first eighteen rows), but once the images include an honor guard of people in camos vs. dress uniform they apparently are still the pictures of the soldiers as opposed to the Columbia crew.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

If the relatives of the soldier in the coffin say ok, I have no problems with the pictures being spread across the country. Heck, if the permission was explicit, I'd link to them.

But just because they died heroically doesn't mean we have any right to the images

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Just because they died heroically doesn't mean they have any right to the images.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

If I'm the next of kin and say no, no one has any right to put my relative's coffin pics on CNN

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. Absolute total bullshit, completely unbacked by any law. The fact that your kin died in action is something that concerns every American, and you have no right whatsoever, either legal or moral, to prevent that imagery from being disseminated.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

How can you tell it's your relative's coffin, anyway?

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

I can see the question of having a "right" to the images, but there's the fact that "some victims' families... argue the White House is trying to prevent Americans from seeing daily images of death that could sour support for the war."

Basically, it's one of those grey areas that life is so full of. For me, if the pictures stir in everybody the same reaction they stirred in me...I don't think the families could ask for a more telling tribute to the loss of their loved one. Yes, I'm probably over-simplifying in a huge fashion, but there you have it.

Even putting aside the political arguements - whether the White House is trying to suppress negative images of the war, whether we should have gone in way before we did and stay indefinitely, whatever your viewpoint - these images do what stories can't. You can talk about deaths in Falluja and airstrikes and suicide bombers til you're blue in the face and still not get the point across as well as one flag-draped coffin. And no, the point isn't war bad/good, but that war is war and our countrymen are there, fighting and dying. I don't care what your political leanings, that's something that needs to be acknowledged. And as the conflict drags on, sometimes we lose our grasp of that concept and images like this help to drive it home.