Coalition For Free Thought In Media – 2005-03-07 23:06:22
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/index.php?op=edit&itemid=2461
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
The editors of Coalition For Free Thought In Media hope that this very powerful pictorial can serve as a tribute to all the fallen and wounded soldiers. There have been little or no pictures of funerals and the dead and wounded soldiers appearing in the US media. This is the awful reality of the war we are fighting, that the US government has attempted to black out and hide from the public.
The Bush administration has officially ordered the US media not to carry pictures of the coffins or the dead soldiers. Pictures like this must be seen by the public, so that the real horrors and tragedy is never forgotten. We at C.F.T.M. feel it is our duty to do this.
Over 50% of people recently polled in the US could not say how many soldiers had died in Iraq (within 500). It is because our views of the coffins returning and the funerals are being deliberately blockjed and hindered.
Since March 2003, a newly-enforced military regulation has forbidden taking or distributing images of caskets or body tubes containing the remains of soldiers who died overseas.
For more info on the coffin ban, see:
Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A55816-2003Oct20¬Found=true
— Jay Shaft, editor, CFTM
Photo Tribute compiled by Jay Shaft and the Editors of C.F.T.M.
US Troops Deaths in Iraq Top 1,500
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, (March 3, 2005) — The number of US troops killed in Iraq has topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans, while car bombs targeting Iraqi security forces killed at least four people in separate attacks.
“I think war is a dangerous place.” — George W. Bush, Washington, DC, May 7, 2003
(January 14, 2005) — “Sometimes, words have consequences you don’t intend them to mean,” Mr Bush said. “‘Bring ’em on’ is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1391044,00.html
“If you’re reading this, then I’ve died for our country. I just hope it wasn’t for nothing.”
— US Army Spc. David P. Mahlenbrock, 20. Killed by a roadside bomb in Kirkuk on 12/03/04
Most Americans Don’t Know How Many Have Died in Iraq War
Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III / Capitol Hill Blue
Feb 12, 2005, 06:44
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6200.shtml
No Cameras for US War Dead’s Return
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3239659.stm
Ever since the Vietnam war, it has been assumed — in the United States and abroad — that American public opinion cannot stomach high casualties.
US Concern over War Dead Photos
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3652171.stm
Associated Press
Deputy Under Secretary of Defence John Molino said Pentagon lawyers were looking into whether banning the further release of such photographs would fall foul of the Freedom of Information Act.
“The attorneys now are looking to see if the policy and the law are in conflict, or if the policy and the law are not in conflict and there was just some misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the situation that allowed that release,” he told reporters.
In March 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at US military bases. “There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops,” the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains.
A White House spokesman said Bush has not attended any memorials or funerals for soldiers killed in action during his presidency as his predecessors had done, although he has met with families of fallen soldiers and has marked the loss of soldiers in Memorial Day and Sept. 11, 2001, remembrances.
The Pentagon has previously acknowledged the effect on public opinion of the grim tableau of caskets being carried from transport planes to hangars or hearses. In 1999, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, said a decision to use military force is based in part on whether it will pass “the Dover test,” as the public reacts to fatalities.
Senators Grill Military Leaders on Budget Tactics
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (February 11, 2005) — The chiefs of the military services faced sharp questioning on Capitol Hill on Thursday for submitting a $419-billion Pentagon budget that senators described as artificially low, with regular military costs left for an upcoming emergency spending bill.
Costs for 30,000 extra Army soldiers, 3,000 additional Marines and military equipment should be included in the regular 2006 Defense spending measure — not the $80-billion emergency war bill the Bush administration will seek next week, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said.
Faced with tough questioning that seemed aimed more at Rumsfeld and the White House than at the service chiefs, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker told senators that the Pentagon avoided other cuts by putting some of the spending in the war bill instead of the regular budget.
“If we were to pull that inside of our core budget, inside the ’06 budget, we would have to displace other things that are too important to us,” Schoomaker said. (2/11/05 AP)
US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker
This soldier did not have to die.
Rumsfeld dismissed that criticism in a Pentagon briefing this week. Asked if he was hiding military funding in the supplemental bill, Rumsfeld, smiling, said: “No, that would be wrong. And we wouldn’t do that.” (2/11/05 ASSOCIATED PRESS)
“I am the master of low expectations.”
“We can see a lot of progress being made, but it is far from over,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of time, patience and dedication on the part of our soldiers away from their families.” — Donald Rumsfeld June 19th, 2003
Captions to the photos:
• “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a US soldier serving in Iraq who asked him why troops had to dig through scrap metal to armor vehicles
• Halliburton Co., under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, would receive an extra $1.5 billion as part of the Bush administration’s additional war spending proposal for fiscal 2005, a senior US Army budget official said on February 25, 2005. Halliburton, once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, is the largest corporate contractor in Iraq and has drawn fire for its no-bid contracts there. Halliburton’s Houston is shown in this May 9, 2003 file photo. Photo by Richard Carson/Reuters
• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005, to discuss military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A big concern was further funding for continued military prescence in both countries.(AP Photo)
• Thursday’s session put the uniformed chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in the uncomfortable position of defending a spending plan that ultimately was decided by Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, with advice from the commanders. (2/11/05 ASSOCIATED PRESS)
• Sue Niederer, whose son Lt Seth Dvorin was killed in Iraq addresses the crowd at city hall.
• Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld attends a hearing on President Bush’s funding request for the war in Iraq. Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak — AP
• Rumsfeld- Estimates on Iraq Insurgency Unreliable – 2/16/05
• US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gestures while testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill, February 16, 2005. Rumsfeld said US intelligence agencies have failed to provide reliable estimates of the size of Iraq’s insurgency. Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters
• US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (R) gestures while testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Richard B. Myers (L), February 16, 2005. Rumsfeld testified about the Defense Department’s needs for additional supplemental funds to continue military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. REUTERS/Larry Downing
• Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in this Feb. 3, 2005 file photo, to discuss military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is contemplating other key personnel moves that will influence the course of the Bush administration’s defense policies and the future shape of a military that is under great strain. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, Files)
• Cindy Sheehan clutches a photo of her son, Casey, at Wednesday’s protest. Casey died during an April mission in Sadr City, Iraq.
• Nancy Lessin, center, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, lists her complaints against Secretary Rumsfeld as Sue Niederer, left, and Bill Mitchell display photos of their sons, who were killed while serving in Iraq.
Taps
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake, From the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor,God keep.
On the land or the deep,Safe in sleep.
Love, good night, Must thou go,
When the day, And the night Need thee so?
All is well. Speedeth all To their rest.
Fades the light; And afar Goeth day,
And the stars Shineth bright,
Fare thee well; Day has gone, Night is on.
Thanks and praise, For our days,
‘Neath the sun, ‘Neath the stars,’Neath the sky,
As we go, This we know, God is nigh.
IF THESE PICTURES DO NOT TRANSMIT INTACT, THE ORIGINAL POST CAN BE FOUND AT:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/30261
See:
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
See also
http://cryptome.org/mil-dead-iqw.htm
Eyeballing the Iraq Kill and Maim Zone
http://cryptome2.org/ikz-eyeball.htm
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