Bloodless Coup

The Death of Public Discourse, Part 10,374

I realize this (even if it is news to some) won't surprise too many people, but it seems that the Pentagon has a deliberate policy of flying in the soldiers wounded in Iraq after dark (no subscription, but have to watch a brief ad). We already knew that the Pentagon was banning any photos of coffins arriving. That's old news. Given that, banning photos of wounded is the next logical step.

Since 9/11, the Pentagon's Transportation Command has medevaced 24,772 patients from battlefields, mostly from Iraq. But two years after the invasion of Iraq, images of wounded troops arriving in the United States are almost as hard to find as pictures of caskets from Dover. That's because all the transport is done literally in the dark, and in most cases, photos are banned.

You know, if this is a "just" war that is spreading freedom and democracy, shouldn't we be able to see and celebrate those people who are paying for it with literally their blood and guts? Is that too much to ask?

Of course, what this really does is further remove the real costs from any sort of public debate about why we did it, and what we should do next. I'm not saying that the American people would immediately abandon Iraq if we did see coffins and stretchers, but it certainly doesn't help the level of truthfulness of the debate to keep them hidden.