# Photos of US military coffins now surfacing. What will be the effect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634 "2004-04-23T14:28:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Danalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@Danalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danalan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634/41 "2004-04-24T22:00:55Z")
Ascribing omniscience to the military is foolish. It’s not that they were extraordinarily incompetent, either. The shuttle pictures were likely included on the disk because the clerk who made the disk made a mistake. It’s not the first time that someone, sifting through what must be mounds of data, mis-labeled or mis-apprehended what they were looking at or cataloging. It’s a simple error, inflated because of the intense focus on the issue. ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634/42 "2004-04-25T04:09:59Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Bush moved by casket photos Yeah, his heart bleeds. Too bad he has never been able to free up some time in his busy campaign schedule to attend EVEN ONE funeral of one of our 704 dead Iraq soldiers. Wouldn’t want to intrude on his workout schedule or power nap, now would he? Here’s a story on this from last Oct 30, 2003: [Bush Ignores Soldiers’ Burials](http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17079) and another one from April 20, 2004: [President Bush, Honor Fallen Soldiers and Attend a Funeral or Memorial](http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition.cfm?itemid=15977&ms=afc001) > [@](#): > > \*\*Bring out your dead \*\* > > Pictures of flag-draped coffins could kill Bush’s re-election hopes > > Mark Lawson > Saturday April 24, 2004 > The Guardian > > American elections are frequently a duel between two photographs. The candidate tries to find the right picture, the snap which encapsulates his campaign: the young Bill Clinton shaking hands with JFK, or Ronald Reagan with his hand on his heart in front of a flag. His opponent hopes for the emergence of the wrong picture, the snap they didn’t want on the poster: Gary Hart with a floozy on a yacht; Michael Dukakis looking like an Action Man model in a tank. > > George Bush has so far struggled to locate his chosen photo: the turkey he was pictured serving in Iraq proved embarrassingly to be fake, the “Mission Accomplished” banner under which he parked his plane on an aircraft carrier now looks ludicrously premature. President Bush’s handlers might have consoled themselves that there was at least no risk of a bimbo picture coming out but, this week, there was much worse. America started to see the photographs Bush was dedicated to suppressing. > > [Full article](http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1202246,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634/43 "2004-04-25T04:59:57Z")
> [@iamme99](#): > > Yeah, his heart bleeds. Too bad he has never been able to free up some time in his busy campaign schedule to attend EVEN ONE funeral of one of our 704 dead Iraq soldiers. Wouldn’t want to intrude on his workout schedule or power nap, now would he? This has been hashed out extensively on this board in the past. The opinions run a bunch of different ways, naturally. I remember, when I was younger, a county commissioner attending the viewing of a family member of mine. He made sure to sign the guest book, too. This caused a lot of bad feeling in the family, as he wasn’t well known to us. The consensus feeling was that he was looking for votes. Funerals are for family and close friends only, where I come from. Surely, if George Bush were to attend a funeral for a servicemember he didn’t know, he would be attacked for that too, for using the death of a servicemember for political gain. If I were him, I wouldn’t do it in a million years. ---
**Author:** ![legion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@legion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legion)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634/44 "2004-04-25T05:39:14Z")
OP: **Photos of US military coffins now surfacing. What will be the effect?** I can only speak for myself, but I found the images of the returning coffins to be deeply moving, but also very sanitised. Seeing the coffins in the aircraft, arranged with military precision, each one draped with the flag, and the military escort standing at semi attention, cannot help but impress one of a sacrifice well made in a just war. However, seeing that this is anything but a just war, perhaps they shouldn’t have bothered with coffins. Perhaps they should have just tipped the remains of the soldiers onto the tarmac. Maybe then I and others would question whether this charnal house sacrifice was “well made”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photos-of-us-military-coffins-now-surfacing-what-will-be-the-effect/241634.md?page=2)