Bush deploys 20,000 body bags to Iraq

[The Sushi Bandit]

or are they personal affects containment suits? They are cleverly disguised as "Hefty Bags" but we all know what they are realy for!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1096901,00.html

Transfer tubes is the most recent propaganda term employed by the George Walker Bush Pentagon to describe the return of soldiers' remains from the War in Iraq.<1>


"In order to continue to sell an increasingly unpopular Iraqi invasion to the American people, President George W. Bush's administration sweeps the messy parts of war — the grieving families, the flag-draped coffins, the soldiers who have lost limbs — into a far corner of the nation's attic."

"But today's military doesn't even use the words 'body bags' — a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died. ... During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them 'human remains pouches' and it now refers to them as transfer tubes."

"But last March, a directive came down reaffirming the banning of cameras, likely in anticipation of the sheer volume of casualties being repatriated. ... At Dover, Lt.-Col. Anderson says the policy is strictly in place to respect the privacy of the families, although he is well aware that there are those who think it was a political decision. ... 'The administration has clearly made an attempt to limit the attention that would build up if they were showing Dover every day,' says Joseph Dawson, a military historian at Texas A & M University. ... The White House policy works — to a point. ... If there are no pictures of caskets being delivered to U.S. airbases, citizens don't think of them, analysts say. ... Dawson says television pictures of the wounded at Walter Reed would be a jolt to Americans as they head out to dinner or are thinking of the week's NFL matchups."

[wingnut]

1. non issue

They ordered 5 times that amount before the invasion, and a similar number before the first gulf war. Each time it caused a fuss, then disappeared.

[louis-t]

2. The image burned into my brain....

is of b*sh visiting some amputees at a hospital, all of whom had just received their first prosthetic limbs. I could just read his mind "See, good as new, in fact these new limbs are actually better than the original. Dang."

[jogi1969]

3. this may be a stupid question:

You know the whore national media has helped kept the curtain tight at Dover; but how is the local semi-whore media keeping mum?

I mean I lived in NC last year, the place where i worked they had a frickin wall filled of pics of dad/mom/brother/cousin etc how is it that nobody talks about it?
No water cooler conversations on if their people are hurt/not coming home.

Amazing