US Hypocrisy ?

How can the US govt ban the publication of pictures of the returning coffins of servicemen and women killed in the service of their countries and yet allow the widespread distribution of more shocking images such as the recent pictures of Princess Diana's broken and bloody body still in the wreckage of the crashed car ?

Is this not slightly hypocritical ?



p.s. relatively new here so not sure if this is the right area for this post, if i'm wrong, sorry to the MOD's !

More interesting I think is the fact that the images of war dead returning from Iraq are banned 'out of respect for the families' yet the images of the coffins of astronauts who died on board Columbia were shown all over the place. Seems to be a bit of a double standard there.

I tend to think that the White House's response is rather flimsy - To respect the families? I can understnad this, but they are anonymous coffins, they are not being depcited with names, ranks, etc. Rather, they are portayals of war. As much as a portrayal of war, though, are the pictures of the US Citizens - contractors, that is - who were brutally murdered and burned in Fallujah.

www.homestead.com...

Didn't much see those pictures around, either - though probably because (and here's the liberal bias coming in) the media seems to portray the Iraqi war as a war which is killing babies, and a people who love Americans. Fact is (and granted, I should hope it's the minority), most Iraqi's jsut think this is "out of the frying pan and into the fire" - out goes Hussein, in comes the US of A.


Additionally, during the Vietnam war, there was continual footage of the return of our nation's dead and wounded. If you ask me, this is a necessary part of our media; it is America's sons and daughters who are being killed in this war. Whether this war was justified is not the question, it is a question of what the public should know.

Now, those who are claiming that it's important to show these coffins are also those who gnashed their teeth when Bush produced the campaign advertisement with 1-2 s clip of a flag-raped coffin from the World Trade Center. Again, a double standard....Just thought I'd throw that bone in there.

It seems that the administration right now is one of the most secretive there have ever been in United States history - Hell, I'm a republican and I'm readly to oust Bushie on the next go-around. The population seems to suffer from an instant-gratification mindset, and the issues surrounding much of the wartime rhetoric require much sifting and thinking - it is a complex issue. Altogether, though, the public seems quick to glom onto whatever is the fastest and easiet.