As for the comment of people on a high horse, and the fact that we need a herd of them. Anyone remember the Vietnam war, and the soldiers that were spit on and ridiculed for partaking in the war regardless of whether they volunteered or were drafted? Yes, please, I want to come home to my country and have a lot of high horses attacking me as they don’t see any other way to protest a war than by making the lives of soldiers difficult. A lot of people don’t agree with the war, personally, I have lost quite a few friends as it is, and there were a bunch of high horses at the funeral of these soldiers – protesting the funeral, and saying it is “God’s” will that these men and women die as they fought in an unjust war. From that, yes, I believe that taking pictures of coffins can be a security risk, not necessarily for the Government, but for those that are fighting, and their families. If people could properly channel their anger at the war, or that young men and women are dying it it so that it didn’t actually hurt those who swear the oath to defend the country that we all live in; then yes, by all means, honor those that die by taking a photograph in their memory. But I do believe the media has done their share in blemishing those that serve already as I walk down some streets and get an enormous amount of swear words flung in my direction because I swore an oath to defend those that I sometimes have doubts of deserving it.

For those that may read this and disagree with what I say, I offer you, walk a mile in our shoes and you will see how the media has affected the perception of the Soldiers that defend America. When you realize the perception, will more photo’s of coffins help or hurt the soldiers?

From the perspective of someone outside of the USA, and who has lived in the USA, this is yet another example of the dangerous combination of hypocrisy, hubris and ignorance that the rest of the world sees when it looks into the heart of the USA.

The only things “protected” by this form of censorship are the political careers of those who allowed this farce to perpetuate, the bottom lines of the vast military-industrial complex that bankrolls a plutocratic US system of government, and that needs to test it’s latest weapons of mass & specific destruction in order to assure future funding and sales, and the misbegotten concept of the USA as “world policeman” (self-appointed, and no objection brooked, lest they send troops to your country to “restore order”).

Well, yes, precisely. That’s why we *need* photographs of dead soldiers – why the public must be presented with the butcher’s bill. Wars that the public cannot stomach probably should not be fought. We need a ranch full of High Horses, to ride herd on the generals and presidents who all too easily send soldiers to die in secret and for unworthy causes – we need it to be difficult to fight all but the most necessary wars (and we haven’t had one lately).

Must.

http://www.alloftheamericanservicemenandwomen.com/