Legal Commentary

Censoring Pictures of the Dead in Iraq

By TChris

If things are going as swimmingly in Iraq as John McCain would like us to believe, why is the military so desperate to control the visual message?

The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war. ...

[O]pponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.

[more ...]

Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. Detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the Department of Defense, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.

Says Zoriah Miller, the photographer who has been barred from covering the Marines (and who will be "barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world" if Maj. Gen. John Kelly has his way):

“It is absolutely censorship,” Mr. Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”

Capt. Esteban Vickers claims that pictures of dead soldiers are disrespectful. But a visual record of the war is neither respectful nor disrespectful. Pictures tell the truth in a way that words can't. If they are disturbing, that's because war is disturbing. Americans might think more about what it means to lose 4,000-plus American soldiers if they had more opportunities to see the horrific nature of the war in Iraq.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 26, 2008 (boomark / email).