Robert Gates, the secretary of defense appointed by Bush and retained by Obama to run the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stepped up to a family's defense of their child this week. This "child" is, or was, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, a 21 year old marine who was mortally wounded in combat in Afghanistan. An Associated Press photographer got a picture of Bernard as he lay dying, with his leg nearly severed, being attended to by two other soldiers. Bernard's father asked that the AP not distribute the photo, but, after consideration, the AP chose to make it available to news organizations. Their director of photography explained the AP decision as a "journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is." (Quote is from the Washington Post article here.)
Gates, the man who is overseeing the troop surge in Afghanistan, got pretty upset about the AP running that photo of the dying marine, and suddenly, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard is back to being a "child" in Gates' eyes: "Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front pages of multiple American newspapers is appalling." Why would Gates have sent this child to die in a war thousands of miles from his home in the first place? Why does Gates oversee the recruitment of thousands of American children into a military that is used to defend the interests of US capitalism despite the horrible costs of a brutal war? The hypocrisy flows from Gates' pen when he is defending the wish of a devastated father grieving the loss of his child. How Gates can attack the AP for "lack of compassion" is beyond comprehension. Military families across the country must feel safe in the knowledge that the guy sending their children off to kill and to be killed or to come home physically and mentally scarred from the horrors of war is a real bulldog when it comes to upholding their wishes after their child is dead.
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