U.S. Military censors journalists from taking pictures of wounded American soldiers

This is censorship by the American military. I found this New York Times story through Americablog. Here is the NY Times story:

Many of the journalists who are in Iraq have been backed into fortified corners, rarely venturing out to see what soldiers confront. And the remaining journalists who are embedded with the troops in Iraq — the number dropped to 92 in May from 126 in April — are risking more and more for less and less.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.

If Joseph Heller were still around, he might appreciate the bureaucratic elegance of paragraph 11(a) of IAW Change 3, DoD Directive 5122.5:

“Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member’s prior written consent.”

[....]

Ashley Gilbertson, a veteran freelance photographer who has been to Iraq seven times and has worked for The New York Times, (along with Time and Newsweek among others), said the policy, as enforced, is coercive and unworkable.

“They are basically asking me to stand in front of a unit before I go out with them and say that in the event that they are wounded, I would like their consent,” he said. “We are already viewed by some as bloodsucking vultures, and making that kind of announcement would make you an immediate bad luck charm.”

“They are not letting us cover the reality of war,” he added. “I think this has got little to do with the families or the soldiers and everything to do with politics.”

[....]

Until last year, no permission was required to publish photographs of the wounded, but families had to be notified of the soldier’s injury first. Now, not only is permission required, but any image of casualties that shows a recognizable name or unit is off-limits. And memorials for the fallen in Iraq can no longer be shown, even when the unit in question invites coverage.

The U.S. military has decided that journalists covering the Iraq war must "obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited." If a reporter wants to take a picture of a wounded American, then the reporter has to get a signed consent form from that wounded American, who, at that moment on the battlefield, couldn't care less about signing consent forms, but would rather get to the hospital and have the doctors treat the soldier's wounds. It is a back-door approach to censorship on the American media. The Bush administration, and the Pentagon, knows that the American public is turning against the war. The only way to continue the war is to censor whatever information comes out of Iraq--keep the war sterile to the American public. The Pentagon has banned the media from taking pictures of flag-draped American coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base from Iraq. Now it is time to ban the American media from taking pictures of wounded Americans--keep the war sterile to the American public.

Can't take pictures like these anymore:

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Kimberly Kemp, left, and Maj. Craig Stanaland wheel a U.S. Marine who was wounded during an assault near the Syrian border into a hospital in Balad, Iraq, on Monday. Jacob Silberberg / AP

A wounded American soldier lay on the hood of a Humvee on Tuesday in Baghdad as she was moved after a missile attack on an Iraqi police station. The missiles were fired from a nearby apartment building. Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

And let's not forget the flag-draped coffins of American dead here:













America--This is what is happening in Iraq.