Secrecy...

... Kills Democracy.

"It was Defense Secretary Dick Cheney who banned media coverage of military casualties in December 1989, a day after the US invasion of Panama. Three television networks ran live coverage of the first flag-draped coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base, juxtaposed in split-screen with footage of George Bush I laughing with reporters at a White House press briefing--a devastating image for Poppy. The prohibition continued into the first Gulf War, as an Administration eager to kick off the Vietnam Syndrome desperately wanted to keep US casualties off the evening news. President Clinton permitted exceptions for Americans killed in bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and aboard the USS Cole.

The DoD restated the ban on media coverage at military bases shortly after the start of the war in Afghanistan and expanded the policy before the Iraq War to include all fallen soldiers' caskets. Only in March 2004, after Russ Kirk of thememoryhole.org filed a FOIA request, did the Pentagon release some 300 photos of the fallen. As the powerful images swept across the internet, the DoD immediately reversed course and refused to release further photos, prompting the FOIA from Begleiter."

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