by James Glaser
September 8, 2005

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not want the news media to show any more dead bodies or take photographs of them in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman for FEMA said in an e-mail response to a Reuter's inquiry.

I don't know if they have passed a law about this yet, but the Bush administration is enforcing one that prevents even the flag-draped caskets of the Soldiers and Marines, killed in Iraq and Afghanistan from being photographed.

Seldom are the innocent Iraqis and Afghans who are killed ever shown. Oh, American media might show some dried blood on a street or some empty shoes that signify death, but bodies are seldom seen.

Without the image of dead bodies, the horror of what happened after the hurricane or what is ongoing in Iraq, seems somehow less. Bodies floating in the water in New Orleans, those in wheel chairs, and on sidewalks around the dome, were images that stuck with you. Those bodies told a story that Washington and the Bush administration don't want told.

We see only pictures of living Soldiers and Marines when we talk about their death in combat. George Bush does not want Americans remembering what their death looked like, only what their life looked like.

The same is now true for those who died in the storm, and especially those who died after the storm. Images of dead bodies would bring home the fact that many people died waiting for their Government's help.

Like so many things since George Bush became President.... out of sight, out of mind.