The Associated Press Has Gone To Far

[RICHARD]

So, we must revoke the media's option to 'publish' photos of the war?

All the protest groups wanted the pictures of the coffins coming off the transports, but we dig a little deeper and everyone freaks out?

So, we let this poor guy die on video, then turn out heads in disgust.

Not a good way to honor OUR own.

I think the word is 'transperancy' we are offered the ideal by the new regime, why not take it and use it for something constructive?

Nope, instead we wuss out again and bury this poor kid's sacrifice because death, especially one as fricking horrific as that, makes us uncomfortable and fidget in our seats.

People talk about losing our "taste for war"-

We can either have it 'served' occasionally and be reminded of the aftertaste that lingers in our head, or have it served every day and get used to it on our plates.

[Grace]

So, we must revoke the media's option to 'publish' photos of the war?

All the protest groups wanted the pictures of the coffins coming off the transports, but we dig a little deeper and everyone freaks out?

So, we let this poor guy die on video, then turn out heads in disgust.

Not a good way to honor OUR own.

I think the word is 'transperancy' we are offered the ideal by the new regime, why not take it and use it for something constructive?

Nope, instead we wuss out again and bury this poor kid's sacrifice because death, especially one as fricking horrific as that, makes us uncomfortable and fidget in our seats.

People talk about losing our "taste for war"-

We can either have it 'served' occasionally and be reminded of the aftertaste that lingers in our head, or have it served every day and get used to it on our plates.

Very well said, Richard.

Bob Herbert wrote an opinion piece for the NY Times a few weeks ago. I wish I could express myself the way he does. For anyone interested, here is the link.

Speaking of Iraq and Afghanistan, he says this -

Most Americans have conveniently put these two absurd, obscene conflicts out of their minds. There’s an economy to worry about and snappy little messages to tweet. Nobody wants to think about young people getting their faces or their limbs blown off. Or the parents, loaded with antidepressants, giving their children and spouses a final hug before heading off in a haze of anxiety to their third or fourth tour in the war zones.

[pomtzu]

IMO - there's a big difference between seeing a flag draped coffin, and watching a video of how that person inside ended up there. One's death is a very private and personal matter, or at least it should be.

VietNam was overkill. It was shoved down our throats day after day by every broadcast station. You couldn't watch a newscast without seeing the death and destruction every day - and for how many years??? Wasn't that enough???

It's simply disrespectful to his family members to have the world able to view their loved one's horrific death. I'm certain that those images will be burned in their memory forever, and they will have to live with those images for a lifetime, rather than more serene and pleasant memories. Even the coffin as a last memory is by far, more preferable then what they have been left with.

[RICHARD]

IMO - there's a big difference between seeing a flag draped coffin, and watching a video of how that person inside ended up there. One's death is a very private and personal matter, or at least it should be.

.

Correct.

A sanitized version of the war is an aluminum casket.

I am not happy to see pics of young kids (and I do not use that term perjoratively) 'dying' on a battlefield. I put dying in quotes because of a special I watched about wounded soldiers coming back from the ME.

One guy said something like "I celebrate two birthdays, my real birthday and then the day I was wounded."

I guess that is the way to look at things-I can imagine the pain and the reminders of getting wounded in a place far away from home, fighting a war that is unpopular back home.

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We have a few options here.

We tuck tail and walk out.

We tuck tail and run out.

We stick to it - I effing hate the term "Stay the Course" because it's a clean version of "Let's keep sending money, men and more shiat to a war that should have been decisive and relatively fast." That and the fact that it turned into a catchphrase for financial, insurance and political stupidity.


Let's get our shiat together, walk into Afghanistan, clean the AHs out and come home.
I don't have the taste for a war that we 'fight' and have to follow every rule and every bomb with a mea culpa Eff this, no one holds homicide bombers and Taliban eff ups to any standards. I think we can bend the rules a bit.

AMEN.

[pomtzu]

Well Richard, I really don't think there is any way to sanitize it. War, and death by war is dirty. We all know that. We've seen way too much of it in our lifetime.

All I'm saying, is respect the person that gave his/her life, and their family as well. Show the coffins if you must, if only as a reminder that they are still dying, lest we forget. But please, keep the rest private.

[RICHARD]

Well Richard, I really don't think there is any way to sanitize it. War, and death by war is dirty. We all know that. We've seen way too much of it in our lifetime.

I want you to go to the window, open it up and yell, "I am as mad as HELL and I 'm not going to take this anymore."

The perfect example of this -not to say that they compare in any way- is what is happening at the Town Hall Meetings.

People are ticked off and getting the morons in charge to listen to them

Why? It's a matter of here and now, not over there and yesterday-as the war has become.

The reason the protests against the war were, and still are, ineffectual is the way they were organized.

How's about showing up at a rep's office two, three times a week? Nope, I used to pass the idiots gathered on a street corner in Burbank telling people to beep their horns against the war. IT's Friday night! Let's go stand on the street corner for a few hours, then go shopping at IKEA, it's a block away!

Up the street there is a Blue Star Highway Memorial at a park.....

Why not set up a protest there?

Nope they want to be on the corner where they yell and scream, make people slow down and gawk.

That will end the war really soon.

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A little distaste and reminder what the war is, a place far, far away from our comfortable lives, is what we need.

We do not stop and think about the war often.

LCpl. Bernard is someone we won't forget soon and that is a good thing.
The way he died may be too graphic for our tastes, but he's become everyone's brother, in-law, dad, cousin, nephew and kid we grew up with in the neighborhood.

Death on some road far away from home is not glamorous, Neither is the way he died. At the moment we care more about the coverage of his death, not the way he lived and served.

That is the crime here.

[pomtzu]

Touche.

But I still say that the manner in which it is reported, must be sensitive and respectful of that life that was ended far from home. It won't make it any less tragic, but at least it will show compassion.

[moosmom]

IMO - there's a big difference between seeing a flag draped coffin, and watching a video of how that person inside ended up there. One's death is a very private and personal matter, or at least it should be

My opinion too, Ellie.

[lizbud]

VietNam was overkill. It was shoved down our throats day after day by every broadcast station. You couldn't watch a newscast without seeing the death and destruction every day - and for how many years??? Wasn't that enough???

Better not tell that to blue, he doesn't believe it. At least that's what he said in another thread.

War wasnt served up on the radio or at the movies during the World Wars? Granted Im not old enough to even remeber the Viet Nam War, but didnt they have nightly news broadcasts and news reels at the movies during the WWs?
Wasnt it during Viet Nam that the nightly news stopped being objective and started injecting opinions?

[blue]

Better not tell that to blue, he doesn't believe it. At least that's what he said in another thread.

A couple of things here...

1. Havent I been posting enough for you to make a personal insult without going back to a post from last month?

2. Does your reading comprehension suck that bad you cant recognise a rhetorical question?

3. You do know the difference between a statement, something that is said, and a question, something that is asked, right?

4. It is highly possible you are just simply being deliberatly obtuse, to feel better about yourself.

[pomtzu]

So yesterday's very civilized discussion came to a screeching halt when one poster who hadn't made a comment all day, had to make a comment to antagonize another individual, knowing that there would be a counter-post. What's the purpose, and what do these individuals hope to achieve?? Why not just start a "bashing" or "insults" or "I can be nastier than you" thread, where you don't have to search for a reason to be nasty, and anything is fair game.

Stop muddying the waters and diverting the direction of the flow.
And not just in this thread, but all of them.
If the shoe fits, then I'm talking to you.

[lizbud]

Stop muddying the waters and diverting the direction of the flow.
And not just in this thread, but all of them.
If the shoe fits, then I'm talking to you.

" It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others."