Secretary of Defense

$8.7 Billion of $9.1 Billion Unaccounted For

Speaks for itself: http://tinyurl.com/USmoneymissing

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone a festive holiday season and a magnificent New Year!

May we all be champions for transparency back to our global governments, agencies and people who work in them  - much louder, firmer and demand more or better in 2010!

Thank you for supporting TOWP, a venue to expand minds globally.

Be safe, happy holidays and Cheers to 2010!

Abbey

The Disgrace to a US Marine – His Photo in Afghanistan

This ought to help military recruitment for the near future….(sarcastic)

Publish a photo of a soldier’s leg blown off, and the other one badly maimed from a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan on the eve of August 14, 2009.  The Marine was Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard, 21 of New Portland, Maine. He died later that night.

They asked the family if they were okay with the photo being published. The father, a former Marine himself, said “No”.

Not once, but twice. He stated “no” once on the phone, and once in a follow up letter.

Secretary of Defense did the same thing. He “begged” the president and chief executive of the Associated Press, Tom Curley on the phone, and then later with a follow up later to not publish the photo.

What about the word “no” do you not understand, Mr. Curley?

What about hearing it 2 times by the family, and 2 times by the Secretary of Defense, do you not understand?

Did you have convenient loss of hearing the days prior to publishing it?

Why even ask the family if you are going to publish it anyway?

Where is the common decency behind journalism?

Does the AP think they are above anyone to do what they want?

When the Secretary of Defense phones you and then later writes you a letter requesting – actually, it was begging – you not publish photos, you oblige. It’s called respect for your superiors – the ones who are helping to run our country and keep your butt safe!

How dare you Mr. Curley!

There should be a law against defying a Cabinet Member’s direct orders.

Did the AP think this wasn’t going to have repercussions with DoD, Bernard’s family, with the American public, with others worldwide?

1. Piss of Gates – not such a hot idea, since he just granted liency to allow photos showing the soldiers coming home in coffins. You blandishly abused your privilege here –now let’s see what Gates does to restrict you more.
2. Go against the wishes of the family. Well, just plain idiotic. You just walked yourself into the hugest lawsuit! Don’t even bother trying to take a position of defense. You have none. Your explanation of why you did this is pathetic and weak. You have no chance. Mine as well just offer them hundreds of millions now, save yourself some headache and constant bad press.
3. Obama should make a strong statement against the AP, and while he is at it, he should enact a new ruling (with Gates’ suggestions) in terms of the US Military and the media and their boundaries. While he is at it, he should order Curley fired, and maybe even the photographer, Julie Jacobson, too. For her to want this photo to go to the public, knowing it was against the wishes of the family, well, she should pay the consequences as well.

Gates made his letter public to give other journalists pause for future photos and stories. But if I were Gates, I would send a stronger message to photojournalists worldwide. Immediately, everyone comes back home. All photographers off the bases overseas by end of the month. No photos are allowed any more.

In the month where US casualties in Afghanistan were at the highest they have ever been in any month since our war started over 5 years ago,  this is surely not what DoD needs, nor what the Military Recruiting Departments need.

All the people behind this – should be ordered to write Bernard’s family an apology letter. It is appalling they have not done this yet.

This isn’t about showing what is going on over there. There are about a hundred other pictures they could have chosen to depict that. This was not about them informing the American public. This was self interested – for what reason I have no clue.

The pathetic responses –

Julie Jacobson: “death is a part of life and certainly a part of war. Isn’t that why we are here?”

The American public doesn’t need to see this. We all know this. We are updated in numbers every day.  We are all well aware there are soldiers dying and being maimed daily.

She is an unprofessional that shouldn’t have the right to be there anymore. A true photographer has ethics, morals, and knows what is really right and wrong. If she couldn’t figure out that this would hurt the family tremendously, create a serious negative impact (in more ways than one) once this photo was released, than she is an infant with a camera who got lucky with a shot. Not a professional photographer.

Tom Curley:  {The A.P. decided} “to make public an image that conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”

What was this – someone trying to get ‘photo of the year’ award from national geographic or something?

Truly distasteful. Absolutely no respect to the family. Even less respect to the soldier that lost his life, LC Joshua Bernard. This is not how this soldier should have been captured and displayed on his last day alive.

The dignity of who he was as a soldier, his willingness to fight for the US, should have been represented much classier as his ‘last photo’. It should have just been the one you see an hour earlier of him that Jacobson took while he was patrolling an area, and/or the one circulating now, him posing in uniform.

As far as firing Curley and Jacobson – Obama shouldn’t worry about contributing to job loss – they would get massive offers from all the paparazzi. That is the value of what their choice represents today – so it fits accordingly. Overpaid scum with no conscious.

Didn’t anyone ever tell ya: you just don’t mess with the US Marines – and you certainly don’t disgrace them either.

~Written in honor of a young Marine, Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard.