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Gość: TIMharper Re: TRANSFEROWE TUBY IP: *.NYCMNY83.covad.net 04.11.03, 16:21

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'

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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Gość: TIMharper Re: TRANSFEROWE TUBY IP: *.NYCMNY83.covad.net 04.11.03, 16:21

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'

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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