{"id":15061,"date":"2009-10-15T08:45:19","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T13:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=15061"},"modified":"2009-10-15T08:45:19","modified_gmt":"2009-10-15T13:45:19","slug":"command-restricts-photos-of-dead-us-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=15061","title":{"rendered":"Command restricts photos of dead US troops"},"content":{"rendered":"

TSO sent us this link last night from Congressional Quarterly<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The U.S. military command in Bagram, Afghanistan, confirmed Wednesday that it has barred reporters who embed with its forces from videotaping or photographing U.S. military personnel killed in action.<\/p>\n

Several senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee \u2014 including the chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, and the ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona \u2014 said Wednesday they were not aware of the change in policy and wanted to find out more about it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As much as I disagree with restrictions on the press by government agencies, journalists brought it on themselves with their abhorrent behavior in the case of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard whose final moments of life were sent out over the news wires.<\/p>\n

His family asked the Associated Press to not publish the photos, yet they did it anyway. And then, the entire media engaged in an electronic circle jerk to assuage their widdle feewings. For example, although his newspaper didn’t publish the photos, Stars and Stripes<\/a> ombudsman, Mark Prendergast felt the need to give AP a handjob;<\/p>\n

It was a tough call, but the right one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As hard as it may be to view that picture, especially for the Marine\u2019s family, it belongs in the public domain as a legitimate piece of visual history in a conflict that as of this writing has taken 562 American lives in combat, with no end in sight.<\/p>\n

It honors his death, and those of all others, by showing what it means to give one\u2019s life for one\u2019s country. It is also a testament to courage and comradeship. Two fellow Marines can be seen risking their own lives to tend to their fallen buddy under fire.<\/p>\n

Suppressing or withholding the photo would have ill served the open society that the dead Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Me., gave his life to serve so well so far from home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, in the age of instant imaging and broadcasting, Prendergast sees no problem engaging in this type of snuff journalism. Especially, working for a newspaper that’s claim to fame is “The Independent News Source
\nfor the U.S. Military Community”. <\/p>\n

What choice did the military have to protect the good order and discipline of the military by restricting the bad order and indiscipline of the press. <\/p>\n

If the Associated Press and the news outlets who chose to run the photos of LCPL Bernard had showed a bit of decorum, maybe they wouldn’t have had these restrictions placed on them. The government doesn’t usually regulate things that people and organizations regulate properly for themselves.<\/p>\n

Of course, we can probably count on snuff pornographers in the media to cry and whine, but it’s their own damn fault. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TSO sent us this link last night from Congressional Quarterly; The U.S. military command in Bagram, … Command restricts photos of dead US troops<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-military-issues","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}