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April 26 - You've seen the pictures. Now, here are a thousand or so words.
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The publication of the pictures created quite a storm among many Republicans, but not because each flag-covered coffin had a dead American in it. No, what bothered them—and the President—is that the pictures would be exploited by Democrats to highlight the rising death toll our little nation-building adventure in Iraq has rung up.
Do you want to know a secret? The president and his Republican cronies are right. We liberals do want these photos published as widely as possible. That’s so we can put a human face on the death of hundreds of Americans in a pre-emptive war that was sold to the public on a lie—three lies, actually: that it would be quick, that it was necessary because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that American troops would be welcomed as liberators. (At least we liberals are consistent: we also used the gory coverage of Vietnam to help turn public sentiment against Lyndon B. Johnson's war.)
Pentagon spokesman John Moline defended the military's ban on releasing coffin photos (which are taken for historical purposes and are as respectful as a 21-gun salute). "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," he said.
You can understand where the Pentagon is coming from.
Images of American soldiers, men and women who died serving their country,
should not be used for propaganda purposes. Except, of course, when the
Pentagon is issuing the propaganda itself.
Late last week, the White
House and the military went into macho hyperventilation mode upon hearing about
the death of Pat Tillman, a former National Football League player who abandoned
a promising professional football career after 9/11 to join the Army Rangers.
Suddenly, all that talk about honoring the dignity of our war dead was thrown
out the window. Suddenly, all anyone could talk about was the "sacrifice" of Pat
Tillman, how he turned down a $3.6-million contract to serve his country, as if
his sacrifice was greater than the one made by the dead black kid who thought
the Army was his only way out of the inner city and who leaves behind a widow
and two kids.
"Pat Tillman was an inspiration both on and off the field," the White House said in a statement. "As with all who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror, his family is in the prayers of the President and Mrs. Bush." (Thank heaven for small favors. At least we know the president is praying for all the other war dead who were lumped together in a nameless, faceless mass.)
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The same Pentagon that doesn't want us to see the
horrific results of warfare is happy to release photos of Tillman, defiance on
his face, marching, training, posing with the flag. Most newspapers publish just
such a photo whenever a local soldier gets killed. The Pentagon wants
you to see those pictures. In such iconic images, Pat Tillman or the local
soldier becomes not only a hero who died, but a recruiting poster—as deceptive
as the palm-covered posters that convince poor enlistees that their first
posting will be on some beach in Hawaii. As long as there are no photos of the
coffins coming home from Iraq, all the myths can live happily ever
after.
Which brings us back to Russ Kick, the Arizona man who published
the coffin photos on http://www.memoryhole.org/. The name is a
reference to George Orwell's "1984," which centers on a government that
re-writes the past so that it can control its people's understanding of the
present. (So, Orwell had his title off by two decades or so, big deal.)
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The Los Angeles Times called Kick a "First Amendment
activist." I'm not sure what that term means. Isn't every American a "First
Amendment activist"? Otherwise, why bother reading the newspaper at all—whether
it's The Washington Post or the Washington Times? You could just get your
information about the government from White House press releases (the ones that
said we knew where the WMDs are, that Iraqi oil revenues—not American
taxpayers—would rebuild the country, that a free Iraq would begin a domino
effect of liberating the entire Middle East, etc).
"People should see
what the real results of war are," Kick told NPR. "I've always thought that war
should not be fantasized and airbrushed." Yet, that is exactly what the
Pentagon is trying to do with Tillman.
Perhaps President Bush is so
touched by the Tillman death that he'll even break his personal ban on attending
the funerals of our dead soldiers. I'm hoping he doesn't; he wouldn't want to be
seen as politicizing our war dead.
Gersh Kuntzman is also Brooklyn bureau chief for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv
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