Our
View: Iraq war purged of death
Former
Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Hugh Shelton once remarked that
any U.S. military endeavor would have to
pass the "Dover test," referring
to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the
place where Americans who fall in combat
return home in flag-draped caskets. Shelton
meant that a military campaign would only
be sustainable if the public would support
it despite the bitter poignancy of images
of coffins being carried away from a plane
by uniformed soldiers on a regular basis.
The
first Bush administration opted not to take
the test. It barred reporters from Dover
at the start of the Panama invasion and
kept the prohibition in place throughout
the elder Bush's presidency. President Clinton
followed roughly the same policy, though
he made some exceptions for servicemen killed
in terrorist attacks. And the current Bush
administration is adhering to the original
ignominious policy, blocking the media's
coverage of the solemn repatriations under
the guise of preventing sensationalist coverage.
But
the administration is really following what
it believes to be a historical logic --
a logic that says the American public can't
handle the heart wrenching reality of war.
On the surface, this logic appears sound.
Grotesque and horrifying footage of a GI
being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu
led to the rapid withdrawal of forces from
Somalia under Clinton. In Vietnam, public
opposition to the war increased against
a backdrop of an endless stream of Americans
coming home horizontally.
But
there are serious differences between these
conflicts and the war in Iraq. Since the
shocking events of Sept. 11 brought war
to U.S. soil, Americans have become more
willing to accept casualties. Moreover,
the mission is Iraq is now widely agreed
to be vital to the U.S. national interest,
and Americans are unlikely to push the administration
to cut and run irrespective of deaths.
But
whether mournful pictures of red, white
and blue caskets will sway public opinion
is immaterial -- war should not be sanitized.
And
while the media chaff against this restriction,
they are doing their own cleansing of the
conflict. More than 700 U.S. troops have
died and nearly 2500 have been seriously
wounded in the Iraq war. But scarcely a
dead American soldier have we seen (Iraqi
dead are more or less fair game, of course).
During
the war we were treated to an undeniably
disinfected version of events through the
grainy night-vision lenses of embedded journalists.
There were explosions during the Baghdad
blitz, images of tanks blasting away at
unseen targets in the distance and the occasional
up close shots of firefights. But all the
time we saw nary a drop of American blood
that represented anything life threatening.
It is difficult to know whether the media
believe that their audience doesn't want
to see the truth or if the media are simply
playing cheerleader.
Ultimately,
both the government's and the media's policies
are a genuine disservice to all involved.
The dead pass from the combat zone to the
grave unseen by the American people, known
only as such and such number serviceman
or servicewoman to have died in the conflict.
The families are left with their grief,
their soldiers' deaths kept more or less
under wrap save a brief mention on the evening
news. And the American public goes on trying
to get its head around vital issues of war
and death without really having seen either
of them.
|
