Woman loses her job over coffins photo

[Plekhanov]

Hey, Tell that to the poor newsboys who couldn't publish pictures of dead
Americans in World War II until about 1943.

WWII was a defensive total war whereas Iraq is a comparatively minor war of choice as such we don’t have to accept the same restrictions upon our liberties whilst fighting it.

I don't really understand why the nature of a conflict should affect whether or not we should allow for images of fallen soldiers, or should affect what images of any sort are permissible or not permissible.

Aside from the images in question being of wooden boxes and not “fallen soldiers” do you really not see why a society would accept different levels of government control in a total war to a relatively minor war, especially one the administration in question chose to fight?

WWII was forced upon the US and initially at least was far from a sure thing, many thousands of casualties were incurred and at the time it may have been thought necessary to filter the magnitude of this for the purposes of maintaining civilian moral, I can understand why.

Iraq is an entirely voluntary war that was never militarily in doubt and as such the government should take the political consequences of dead and maimed bodies returning home.

[Plekhanov]

WWII was a defensive total war whereas Iraq is a comparatively minor war of choice as such we don’t have to accept the same restrictions upon our liberties whilst fighting it.

Moreover, by allowing the government to claim that any defensive war automatically creates additional protections, you are in fact advocating censorship and encouraging the government to deceive people: anathema to the ideals of a free press.

I said defensive TOTAL war, the key word you missed being TOTAL that is a radically different situation than the US or UK find themselves in today, and yes in such circumstances I do think the government should gain additional powers but there should be nothing “automatic” about it and every restriction of civil liberties should be justified.

During WWII the UK Gov had an incredible level of control over the population (and the press which was far from free) at the time I think this was justified however if the same had been attempted during the Falklands (a defensive war) or either of the last 2 Gulf Wars (the 1st arguably defensive the 2nd not so) I’d have opposed them.

I don’t quite see how I’m encouraging the Gov to deceive the people (not that they seem to need any encouragement) could you please elaborate on that point.

[The Yosemite Bear]

In other news the Persian Gulf memorial has been schedualled to be erected inside an abandoned nuclear missile silo, on an abandoned military base. The Memorial shall be off limits under penalty of federal prosecution to all personeel.