Obama ticks off whiners?

[Platapus]

One could ask "what helped end the Vietnam war?"

One possible answer was Television. Vietnam was the first war that was regularly televised. And as such, was the first war that really exposed large numbers of citizens in America to the horrors of war. Even as a young punk, I remember watching the Vietnam war on TV and thinking to myself, "wow, war sucks".

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/...arontelevi.htm

This exposure to the horrors of the war can have a large influence on the citizen's perceptions. If you want your citizens to be more accepting of war, it is important to isolate them from the war. The United States was pretty successful in WWII on this and very successful in WWI. Unfortunately/fortunately the free press often compensates, often to the displeasure of the government.

President Bush's staff recognized this and as a way of shielding the citizens from the costs of the Invasion of Iraq, decided to hide the numbers of caskets from the public. This is also why the Government was very reluctant to publish US body counts. It was OK to publish body counts of "them" but not "us".

They couched this in rhetoric of respect for the military. But this, in my opinion, only made it more insulting.

President Obama would like for the public's perception of the Invasion of Iraq to continue to drop. It is part of President Obama's platform to withdraw from Iraq. So from an Iraq point of view, President Obama would be willing to show the body counts. It would help his position

However, President Obama wants the public's perception of the Invasion of Afghanistan to remain high as President Obama's plan is to increase our efforts in Afghanistan. The last thing President Obama wants is images of US body counts coming out of Afghanistan, especially since more Americans will be dying in Afghanistan soon. It would not help his position.

This may explain why President Obama is waffling at the question "will you allow the publishing of images of caskets?"