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There are several issues involved here: Military/Political Censorship is one that seems to take center stage at the moment. But another issue, and equally important I think, it the sterilization of war.
During the Viet Nam era, images of the war were played into our living rooms every night. That changed in Gulf War I. War was brought into the living rooms as an antiseptic, video game with pictures of targets (not people) being destroyed from 15,000 feet. Some Americans began cheering for that war and this current war like it was a high school football game.
War is not antiseptic.
On the web, this quote is attributed to Robert E. Lee. " It is good that war is so terrible, lest we become too fond of it"
We have become too fond of it. The more we show the heroic images and pre-occupy ourselves with the "gee-whiz" weapons, the less we see the true horror of war. Nations must sometimes go to war. Sometimes an enemy gives no choice. But we should enter into the decision to engage in war only as a last resort.
The coffin pictures?
Maybe they will teach us not to become to fond of war.
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