U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he may be willing to reconsider a ban on the photographing of slain soliders’ flag-draped coffins.

Gates said that he was ordering a review of the military policy that bars photographers from taking pictures of the return of the coffins, most of which go through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, The New York Times reported.

“If the needs of the families can be met and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates told reporters in Washington.

The policy was put into place in 1991 and has been renewed several times, most recently by the Bush administration a year ago. That’s when Gates raised the possibility of changing the policy, he said, but was told by unnamed administration officials that allowing photographers would put undue pressure on families to go to Dover themselves.

Critics say the coffin-photo ban is a political ploy meant to sanitize the unpopular Iraq war.

Will that ploy be changed to past tense?




  1. Dallas says:

    I think he will.

    The US government is no longer run by a fascist regime that buries evidence that is inconsistent with what they want the public to believe.

  2. Breetai says:

    I don’t see an issue with lifting it. As long as the service men and women (in general not some of the politicians in uniform) are good with it so am I.

  3. Mr Diesel says:

    You mean like the fascist regime from 1993-2001 which could have removed the ban??

    I’m just asking because I don’t know.

  4. MikeN says:

    I think it’s safe to lift the ban, since the Obama sycophants in the media will not put every speech he makes on a split screen with coffins coming off an airplane.

  5. Mr. Fusion says:

    I don’t think the ban will be lifted while Gates is still Secretary.

  6. Paddy-O says:

    # 1 Dallas said, “The US government is no longer run by a fascist regime that buries evidence that is inconsistent with what they want the public to believe.”

    You mean like Bill Clinton who wouldn’t remove the ban?

  7. Ah_Yea says:

    No, the ban won’t be lifted.

    Why? Most in the armed forces see liberals as anti-american, and certainly not friends of the armed forces.

    Those in the military may see allowing pics to be taken of the fallen as politicizing a personal tragety.

  8. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Mr Deisel…I was thinking the same thing, I didn’t know this ban was in place during the Clintonian period. However, when I think about it how many Americans came home in caskets during that time? Just a few, so who really cared? Did Clinton extend the ban?

    Bush’s enforcement of the ban was clearly, unequivocally, and no doubt whatsoever a desire to prevent the deaths of Americans from being photographic news. And can you blame him? Watching Rumsfeld justify the ban was classic bullshit from the fed. Is that guy still alive, anyway?

  9. brm says:

    #7:

    “Those in the military may see allowing pics to be taken of the fallen as politicizing a personal tragedy.”

    I don’t get this attitude. There’s nothing “personal” about a country wanting to see the outcome of a public war it voted to fight.

  10. Phydeau says:

    Why? Most in the armed forces see liberals as anti-american, and certainly not friends of the armed forces.

    You might want to rethink that, pal. Who was it that put our military into two unwinnable wars without adequate body armor and armored vehicles on false pretenses? Who screwed the PTSD-afflicted veterans coming home?

    Hint: not liberals.

  11. Doo Phuss says:

    Maybe I’m not thinking it all the way through, but what ‘privacy concerns’? They’re not taking photos of the inside of the caskets (I hope).

  12. RBG says:

    1 Dallas. Wait… Obama’s choice of the fascist regime’s Gates is still in the room…

    8. Olo. ‘Course you’re ok with banning casket photos from a war that liberals would completely like to forget about (if DU is any indication): Afghanistan.

    RBG

  13. Mr Diesel says:

    #8 OBOB
    However, when I think about it how many Americans came home in caskets during that time? Just a few, so who
    really cared? Did Clinton extend the ban?

    Maybe not as many came home during the Clinton administration but I am reasonably sure that the families cared. One of the most stupid comments I have ever seen on this blog.

  14. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Wow, my language was bad. I didn’t mean to say that families didn’t care about dead sons, hell no I didn’t mean that. Yes, that would be stupid. mea culpa.

    What I meant was nobody cared there was a ban on photos of caskets during Clinton’s term. Nobody probably knew there was a ban. Bush wanted the caskets hidden for the same reason the press wanted the photos. That says a lot about Bushco.

  15. bobbo says:

    Well, I’m a lib and “on balance” I think the ban should stay in place out of respect for the fallen.

    What should get greater review and publication is not pictures which could be posed as much as anyone wants such images, but rather the actual statistics of ware dead and wounded, the care they are receiving, etc. That is also practically banned or hard to get and is actually relevant and not reproducable in other ways.

    Thought some kind of “official” figures were released a week ago about number of Iraqi dead as a result of the Invasion==around 93K from memory.

  16. Ah_Yea says:

    #10 Phydeau. It’s not I who needs to rethink.

    Most who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan like the people and very often choose to serve more than one turn in country.

    In other words, (and I know it will be hard for you to understand this), they believe in what they are doing.

    And should they fall, to have their pictures used to undermine what they believed in and died for is inexcusable. It may also go against the wishes of the family, who should have a say in the matter.

    That said, Bobbo’s got it right. There are much more important things to consider.

  17. GF says:

    Why is this a issue? We know there are dead soldiers. WTF is so important about showing the caskets.

  18. RBG says:

    Because they have US flags on them.

    RBG

  19. bobbo says:

    There is a popular right wing myth that we would have won the Vietnam War if the media had not been a bunch of traitors by showing the flag draped coffins coming back home.

    I’m sure those images have a feather’s weight in favor of anti-war side when the other 10 tons of evidence is also anti war.

    I also think that when the majority of folks/evidence is “for the war” that flag drapped coffins only increase the pro-war fever.

    Symbols mean nothing except the meaning given to them.

  20. Rick Cain says:

    “The Pentagon has cited a policy instituted in 1991, during the Gulf War, as its reason for preventing news organizations from showing images of coffins arriving in the United States.

    That policy was not consistently followed, however, and President Bill Clinton took part in numerous ceremonies honoring dead servicemen. In March 2003, the Pentagon issued a directive it said was established in November 2000, saying, “There will no be arrival ceremonies of, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from” air bases.”

    Apparently the policy was instituted during the first Bush Regime, and his little boy Dubya tightened it up further. Clinton saw fit to honor some of the families dead relatives coming back to Dover.

    Of course Clinton didn’t rack up nearly the same body count as the Bush Regimes.

  21. RBG says:

    But RC, bobbo tells us the daily Afghanistan body count increases the pro-war fever.

    RBG

  22. Honoring The Fallen says:

    If the funerals are paid for by your tax pennies, then photographs should be allowed and images taken should then be part of the public domain, not any one news organization like AP that loves to sue people for legal use.

  23. bobbo says:

    #21–RBG–I’m not for keeping troops in Afghanistan. Don’t know about the public in general. Don’t care what the troops think.

  24. RBG says:

    Meanwhile in Canada:
    But in an unprecedented and controversial decision, Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor banned all media from the air base to cover the repatriation of the four slain soldiers. That reversed the department’s long-standing policy of allowing reporters on to the base to cover the return of deceased soldiers.
    http://tinyurl.com/aabv4z

    I suspect no one thought anyone would actually be killed in a war. Its such a downer to one’s necessary motivation.

    RBG

  25. RBG says:

    23 bobbo So you were ok with the Bin Laden & buddies working from Afghanistan? Or were you thinking more that Al Qaeda just needed to be reasoned with? or that the World Trade building folks got what was coming to them? or that Bush secretly was the one who actually brought those towers down?

    RBG

  26. RBG says:

    22 HTF. See that’s why I’m for state-subsidized gynecological examinations.

    “In 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld the ban after media outlets and some other organizations
    sued to have it lifted. Citing the need to reduce the hardship and protect the privacy of grieving families, the court held that
    the ban did not violate First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press.

    The National Military Family Association, one of the largest military-advocacy groups, supports the policy. “The families that
    we’ve heard from are more interested in their privacy and would hope that people would be sensitive to them in their time of loss,”
    said Kathy Moakler, deputy director of government relations for the organization.”
    http://www.frankwbaker.com/wardeadphotos.htm

    RBG

  27. deowll says:

    If you want pictures of coffins with flags on them why not buy your own or just use the old ones unless you are trying to use the dead as part of your political agenda?

    Don’t bleep on the dead and their families. People who don’t show any respect aren’t going to get any.

    Looks like Gates fell down and went BOOM! unless he was in a car wreck or something?

  28. bobbo says:

    #25–RBG==you sure ask a lot of questions. Shows an inquisitive mind???

    23 bobbo So you were ok with the Bin Laden & buddies working from Afghanistan?/// Nope==but we would have been far better off to let them blow up a building every ten years than what our response has been so far. ((Not trolling, just an economic fact==cheaper, and fewer people killed. Part of the cost of being a world power.))

    Or were you thinking more that Al Qaeda just needed to be reasoned with?/// They should be found and killed. If we can’t do that in 10 years something is entirely corrupt. Time for a new game plan.

    or that the World Trade building folks got what was coming to them? /// How could that possibly be?

    or that Bush secretly was the one who actually brought those towers down? /// He was then, and is now, not competent enough to do that even if he wanted to.

    What does any of these questions have to do with whether or not pictures should be taken of arriving flag drapped coffins?

    You are a silly bunny.

  29. Selvy says:

    If the coffin photo ban gets lifted then I won’t be surprised it shows up on TV…and posting the photos themselves is political. In which case they better post photos of the aftermath of suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks–not the cleaned up ones (or showing smoke/wreckage from a distance), but the real thing. That won’t happen because it’s too ‘provocative’.

  30. RBG says:

    28 bobbo: “What does any of these questions have to do with whether or not pictures should be taken of arriving flag draped coffins?”

    #23 bobbo: –RBG–I’m not for keeping troops in Afghanistan.

    My answer in 23 is a complimentary service to help you think through why there are US troops in Afghanistan and coffins coming home, Doc.

    RBG


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