Ugly truths

The New York Times has a slideshow about war photography, noting how many photographers are getting banned because they insist on publishing photos of dead soldiers. Seems the military doesn't like it when 'identifiable' soldiers have their bodies shown to the world: "Zoriah Miller, the freelance photographer who took photos of Marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of Iraq. Major General John Kelly, the Marine Corps commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq."

Rico says it's foolish, if not hopeless, of the military to try and keep America from seeing what's happening in Iraq. The world press will get the images out, one way or another, and we need to understand what's really happening to our boys over there...

In a classic worthy of Catch-22, this: "Two New York Times journalists were disembedded in January, 2007, after the newspaper published this photo of a mortally wounded soldier. Though the soldier was shot through the head and died hours after the photo was taken, Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno argued that The Times had broken embed rules by not getting written permission from the soldier."

To highlight the ridiculousness of the situation, the website also has famous photos of American dead from WW2 through Vietnam, though even FDR had to weigh in to get them shown at the time. (They are mostly 'unidentifiable', though...)