Twenty years ago, President George H. W. Bush’s administration imposed a ban on media coverage of the return home of the remains of soldiers killed in combat, including those killed during the first attack against Iraq -- ordered by him -- in 1991.
That ban came about after a controversy arose when Bush held a news conference at the same moment the first U.S. casualties were returning to Dover AFB, Delaware, the day after the beginning of yet another Bush killing spree, the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. While Bush joked and cackled post-conference, the split screen coverage of the returning dead soldiers showed the solemn ceremony unfolding at the air base.
However, Bush’s complete disdain and contempt for the military and his total lack of concern for the grieving families came through clearly and indelibly. (He had ordered the invasion to silence Panama’s dictator Manuel Noriega from revealing the CIA/cocaine route through his country, a route known to Bush and established with his okay during the Iran /Contra crimes of the mid-80s.)
When a decade after the first order, GHW Bush’s half-witted son was declared president by the Supreme Court, the banning order was continued. It was invaluable in hiding from the American public the horrific evidence of the results of the war crimes then committed by the second Bush Crime Family and its cohorts as they invaded Afghanistan and Iraq yet again, and occupied both.
Now, that ban has been lifted and today those solemn images are again seen by the nation that allowed its soldiers to be sent to die for one power-crazed family’s hubris and insanity. As former CNN correspondent Ralph Begleiter writes today at CNN’s website:
“The Pentagon policy, which had come into being over the embarrassment of a president, evolved after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, into a complete ban preventing the American people from seeing the most important single measure of the cost of war.
“So desperate, apparently, was the White House desire to block public view of such images that military photographers at Dover were ordered to stop documenting the returns. To my knowledge, since 2005, no further photos have been taken showing those emotional moments when a casualty touches home soil for the last time.”
The order to ban the images was one saturated with ulterior motives. If the public was not allowed to see the painful images of returning dead soldiers, it would be that much easier to continue the lies and deceptions that started the killing to begin with.
Both Bushes have been peacefully removed from power as mandated by what remains of our shredded Constitution. Yet, the deaths that resulted from their criminal decisions continue. The solemn ceremonies, however, are now once again open for the public to see. Unless, of course, we turn our faces away in shame.
