Last night, at the GOP CON-vention, there was a tribute for soldier killed in Iraq. During that tribute, there was a good amount of footage of his funeral service, in general, and of his coffin, in particular.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought it was against Pentagon rules to show footage of the coffins of soldiers that had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
I remember clearly a woman losing her job over her taking pictures of flag-draped coffins on an airplane, and it was only through a FOIA request that the military released pictures, supposedly "on accident", that they had taken themselves that we saw any pictures of the returning war dead at all.
The Rumsfeld's Pentagon even went as far as saying that Sen. Joe Biden could not accompany a family from his state to Dover AFB to collect their son's remains. Without cameras. Without press. As a Senator, they said he was "allowed" to visit the base, just not accompany the family to the mortuary.
Well, you may say, the coffin last night wasn't actually "returning" at that moment, nor was it flag-draped (though they did show his fellow soldiers pinning some sort of medal onto the coffin).
And to that I say, yet another courageous woman has lost her job as a public affairs officer at Arlington Cemetery for trying to accommodate family wishes and allow some sort of limited coverage of funerals. And of course, these funerals had nothing to do with the ban on pictures of returning soldiers in coffins.
Voice of America, in a story on August 19 of this year, said "major changes" are coming to the Pentagon's policy. VOA says that,
"A U.S. Army review committee has drafted a new policy that for the first time would allow the broadcast of remarks made at the funerals of American service members buried at Arlington National Cemetery, just outside Washington."
And they mean it. A microphone, meaning one. Those who have seen the new policy say that,
"it provides for only one person to have a microphone, still keeps all reporters and photographers at a distance and does not allow for interviews of family members or military officials on the cemetery grounds."
Certainly not the graveside service, with full video footage, of the sort of service we saw last night at the convention.
Of course, if the Democrats had shown this sort of thing in their convention there would be outrage, OUTRAGE I tell you! But since IOKIYAR, don't expect the sort of reaction that was heard when the Dems showed pictures of the same sort. Reactions like this one:
"Just when it appeared the left could stoop no lower in its anti-American treason against US troops and the president, Democrats found a way to do just that.
The latest outrage finds Democrats running a fund-raising ad showing images of caskets draped with American flags. Another ad showed a soldier standing over a fallen comrade’s grave.
In other words, misusing images of fallen American hereos just to score cheap political points."
Hypocrisy, thy name is - REPUBLICAN!