White House, Pentagon keeping dead soldiers out of sight,spinning war

Bless our men and women on duty, may you come home safely, and soon.






Pentagon keeps dead out of sight
Bush team doesn't want people to see human cost of war
Even body bags are now sanitized as `transfer tubes'

http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs...d=970599119419

TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

Washington—Charles H. Buehring came home last week.

He arrived at the air force base in Dover, Del., in the middle of the
night, in an aluminum shipping case draped in an American flag.

When the military truck drove his remains across the tarmac, workers
paused and removed their hats.

He was met by a six-member honour guard acting as pallbearers, to
allow a "dignified transfer" to the Charles C. Carson mortuary, where
he became one of an estimated 60,000 American casualties of war that
have been processed there over almost five decades.

"It reminds us we are at war," says Lt.-Col. Jon Anderson, who
describes business at the Dover mortuary as "steady."

But America never saw Lt.-Col. Buehring's arrival, days after a rocket
from a homemade launcher ended his life at age 40 in Baghdad's heavily
fortified Rasheed Hotel last Monday.

Americans have never seen any of the other 359 bodies returning from
Iraq. Nor do they see the wounded cramming the Walter Reed Army
Medical Centre in Washington or soldiers who say they are being
treated inhumanely awaiting medical treatment at Fort Stewart, Ga.

In order to continue to sell an increasingly unpopular Iraqi invasion
to the American people, President George W. Bush's administration
sweeps the messy parts of war — the grieving families, the flag-draped
coffins, the soldiers who have lost limbs — into a far corner of the
nation's attic.

No television cameras are allowed at Dover.

Bush does not attend the funerals of soldiers who gave their lives in
his war on terrorism.

Buehring of Winter Springs, Fla., described as "a great American" by
his commanding officer, had two sons, 12 and 9, was active in the Boy
Scouts and his church and had served his country for 18 years.

No government official has said a word publicly about him.

If stories of wounded soldiers are told, they are told by hometown
papers, but there is no national attention given to the recuperating
veterans here in the nation's capital.

More than 1,700 Americans have been wounded in Iraq since the March
invasion.

"You can call it news control or information control or flat-out
propaganda," says Christopher Simpson, a communications professor at
Washington's American University.

"Whatever you call it, this is the most extensive effort at spinning a
war that the department of defence has ever undertaken in this
country."

Simpson notes that photos of the dead returning to American soil have
historically been part of the ceremony, part of the picture of
conflict and part of the public closure for families — until now.

"This White House is the greatest user of propaganda in American
history and if they had a shred of honesty, they would admit it. But
they can't."

Lynn Cutler, a Democratic strategist and former official in Bill
Clinton's White House, says this is the first time in history that
bodies have been brought home under cover of secrecy.

"It feels like Vietnam when Lyndon Johnson was accused of hiding the
body bags ....

"This is a big government and a big Pentagon and they could have
someone there to meet these bodies as they come back to the country."

But today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" — a term
in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them
"human remains pouches" and it now refers to them as "transfer tubes."

One term that has crept into the U.S. military lexicon, however, is
the "Dover test," shorthand for the American public's tolerance for
wartime fatalities.

The policy of banning cameras at Dover dates back to the 1991 Gulf
War, under Bush's father, Pentagon officials say.

But it has been unevenly applied: You can see photos of soldiers'
bodies returning in coffins from Afghanistan at Ramstein airbase in
Germany.

Clinton met returning coffins from Kosovo and, in an elaborate
ceremony, was on hand for the arrival of the bodies of his former
commerce secretary Ronald Brown 32 others killed in a 1996 plane
crash.

Pictures were allowed of incoming caskets after the terrorist attack
on the USS Cole in 2000 and President George H.W. Bush helped eulogize
Americans killed in Panama and Lebanon.

But last March, a directive came down reaffirming the banning of
cameras, likely in anticipation of the sheer volume of casualties
being repatriated.

At Dover, Lt.-Col. Anderson says the policy is strictly in place to
respect the privacy of the families, although he is well aware that
there are those who think it was a political decision.

"The administration has clearly made an attempt to limit the attention
that would build up if they were showing Dover every day," says Joseph
Dawson, a military historian at Texas A & M University.

The White House policy works — to a point.

If there are no pictures of caskets being delivered to U.S. airbases,
citizens don't think of them, analysts say.

Dawson says television pictures of the wounded at Walter Reed would be
a jolt to Americans as they head out to dinner or are thinking of the
week's NFL matchups.


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Right now, he says, they likely equate war casualties with highway
accidents: They know both kill and don't need to see graphic photos.

"The administration may have to come to grips with this in the months
to come. This strategy depends on how long this war goes on. I have to
wonder whether it might be a good idea to have a monthly remembrance
to reflect on how this campaign is going."

The need for reflection in America is important, Dawson says, because
the country seems to have lapsed back into a state of complacency.

"The country should be asking whether these men and women are putting
their lives on the line for a justifiable purpose."

The Bush strategy, he says, is to divert focus from the dead and the
wounded until — or if — his administration's policy can be judged a
winner, then laud the men and women who gave their lives for freedom.

But it is really rooted in the perception in some quarters that the
media cost the U.S. the Vietnam War.

There are parallels between Vietnam and Iraq in the words used by the
president and in media coverage, even if there is so far no comparison
in duration or casualties.

Whereas Lyndon Johnson and his top general, William Westmoreland,
spoke of "steady and encouraging success" in Vietnam when they knew
differently, Bush last week said the car bombing of the Red Cross
showed the "progress" of the American campaign because insurgents were
becoming more desperate.

Johnson called U.S. bombing missions "limited in scale" or
"commensurate with need" and groused about news coverage. Bush also
says the national media are not telling the truth and keeps implying
the war in Iraq is needed to prevent another attack on U.S. soil.

Also like the Vietnam era, more attention is being given to U.S.
victims the longer the conflict drags on.

The Associated Press last week ran the names and hometowns of all
victims since the Iraq invasion began.

In 1969, Life magazine published a famous, black-covered edition
consisting entirely of portraits of 250 young Americans who died in
Vietnam in one routine week.

Dawson remembers, because his parents cancelled their subscription.

Television images of American soldiers in combat interrupted
Americans' dinners nightly during the Vietnam War.

Clinton took his troops out of Somalia after a photo by the Toronto
Star's Paul Watson, showing crowds cheering as a dead American soldier
was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, was beamed around the
world on news wires.

Increasing casualties in Iraq have had no such dramatic effect on
Bush, but that could change if more attention is paid to the wounded
coming home and the way they are being treated.

Walter Reed officials did not return calls seeking comment, but the
crush of casualties in late summer was such that outpatients had to be
referred to hotels in nearby Silver Spring, Md., because the hospital
was full.

The Washington Times said the hospital had treated about 1,700
patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"Rarely have we seen so many young patients at one time," a
spokesperson said.

Montana soldier Adam McLain, recovering from injuries when a military
Humvee drove over his leg and head in Baghdad, told the newspaper from
his hospital bed: "I didn't realize how many people were without limbs
or without eyes. It's just depressing. I feel lucky. I have all my
limbs."

The situation at Walter Reed and the administration's perceived
indifference were highlighted last week by Cher, who visited troops
there, then called an open-line show on C-SPAN, the U.S. network that
broadcasts congressional debates and other political events.

She did not initially identify herself.

"Why are Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer, the president — why aren't they
taking pictures with these guys?" she demanded, referring to
Vice-President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
and the civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer.

"I don't understand why these guys are so hidden, why there are no
pictures of them."

Cher also criticized the media for ignoring the "devastatedly
wounded."

"Don't hide them," she said. "Let's have some news coverage where
people are sitting and talking to these guys and seeing their spirit."

For every Jessica Lynch, the wounded soldier who returned to a hero's
welcome and a book and movie deal, there is a Shoshana Johnson.

Johnson, shot through both legs and held prisoner in Iraq for 22 days,
will receive 30 per cent disability benefits, about $700 per month
less than her colleague Lynch.

Johnson is black, Lynch is white and the Johnson family says that is
the difference.

There is also an ongoing investigation into the condition of patients
awaiting treatment at Fort Stewart, Ga., where hundreds of sick and
wounded soldiers say they are languishing in dirty barracks waiting
months for needed medical treatment.

They say they must hobble across sand to the use the bathroom, are
housed 60 to a barracks and must pay for their own toilet paper.

Only recently did the Senate successfully demand the White House stop
charging wounded soldiers $8.10 per day for their hospital meals.

Congress also had to step in to increase danger pay and separation pay
for soldiers, as it appeared the Bush administration was set to let
them expire on Sept. 30.

When Congress formally approved funding for military operations and
reconstruction in Iraq, it carved Bush's request for $87 billion by
about $2 billion.

Much of that money will instead be spent — over White House objections
— on improved health-care benefits for those in the military reserve
and National Guard who are serving in Iraq

On 4 Nov 2003 21:30:29 -0800, (it's no
joke,Tuco.It's a rope) wrote:



Pentagon keeps dead out of sight
Bush team doesn't want people to see human cost of war
Even body bags are now sanitized as `transfer tubes'

http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs...d=970599119419

TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU



But America never saw Lt.-Col. Buehring's arrival, days after a rocket
from a homemade launcher ended his life at age 40 in Baghdad's heavily
fortified Rasheed Hotel last Monday.

Americans have never seen any of the other 359 bodies returning from
Iraq. Nor do they see the wounded cramming the Walter Reed Army
Medical Centre in Washington or soldiers who say they are being
treated inhumanely awaiting medical treatment at Fort Stewart, Ga.


It's called privacy and respect for the families.
I wouldn't want my dead relatives paraded in front of TV cameras like
some sidshow either. If the family of the deceased wants to invite the
cameras to the funeral, I'm sure no one would stop them.

(it's no joke,Tuco.It's a rope) wrote in message . com...
[crap, and gloating off-topic crap at that]

Why the **** would anybody pay attention to you?
You can't even find an on-topic news group to post in?
Socks

It's called privacy and respect for the families.
I wouldn't want my dead relatives paraded in front of TV cameras like
some sidshow either. If the family of the deceased wants to invite the
cameras to the funeral, I'm sure no one would stop them.



There's no breach of privacy. Nobody knows who's in the coffins coming off
the plane.

In article ,
says...
Bless our men and women on duty, may you come home safely, and soon.


yes, they are recreating in the backcountry of Iraq and that's why posts
about them are in this newsgroup.

Muskie litters again, under a new name.