Images

Pentagon to allow photos of soldiers’ coffins when families permit

From the New York Times:

In a reversal of an 18-year-old policy that critics said was hiding the ultimate cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press will now be allowed to photograph the flag-draped coffins of America’s war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States — but only if their families agree.

American Forces Press Service article.

No word on whether the military will be taking its own photos of the coffins and, if so, whether they’ll release them.

See also: Photos of Military Coffins

(Thanks, Fred.)

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Ag Dept releases photos/video of hideous cruelty at horse-butchering plant in Texas

Due to a Freedom of Information Act request to the US Department of Agriculture, the animal-welfare organization Animals’ Angels received around 500 photos, and a video, showing nauseating cruelty at the Beltex Corporation’s horse-slaughter facility in Texas. That abattoir has since closed, but Beltex still operates a slaughterhouse in Mexico and a “slaughter horse feedlot” in Texas where horses are kept until being sent to Mexico.

The photos, video, and accompanying documents are posted at this page. No images are displayed on the page;

However, if you want to risk vomiting and nightmares, this page displays some of the photos.

You can also read the PDF press release from Animals’ Angels, the group that filed the FOIA request. Note that the press release contains several sickening photos. Below is the text of the press release, minus the images.

Press Release
November 2008
Animals’ Angels
phone: 410-848-3153
fax: 410-848-0213
www.animals-angels.com

Animals’ Angels, an animal welfare organization
based in Maryland, last week received over 900
pages of documents and photographs from the
United States Department of Agriculture taken
during part of 2005 at the Beltex horse
slaughter plant in Texas. Documents received 36
months after making a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request, reveal an appalling number
of incidences and an equally appalling degree of
suffering sustained by horses. Evidence
indicates alarming cruelty corresponding
directly to horse slaughter.

The large FOIA document contains hundreds of
photographs that graphically depict horses with
open fractures, legs missing, battered and
bloody faces, eyeballs dangling and
what appears to be horses left to bleed to
death. The document provides unimpeachable
evidence for the immediate ban on the
slaughter of American horses.

(more…)

Obama “reviewing” policy on military coffin photos

in 2004, The Memory Hole obtained and posted 288 photos of the war dead coming into Dover. During the Gulf War, the Pentagon banned the release of such photos taken by the military (and the taking of such photos by the civilian press), and it reiterated this ban soon after the invasion of Iraq.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I requested these photos from Dover AFB, and they passed the request to the Air Force’s main FOIA Office, which denied it in full. I appealed, and – in a move that I never expected – the Air Force completely reversed itself and sent me all the photos on a CD. I posted them, the media swarmed, and the images have become iconic.

The Pentagon was not pleased, calling the release a “mistake.” Later, professor Ralph Begleiter and the National Security Archive successfully sued the Defense Department under FOIA, resulting in the release of more photos.

Obama was recently asked whether his administration will reverse or uphold the censorial policy, and his answer is um, er, well. The AP reports:

President Barack Obama says his administration is reviewing a policy that bans the media from photographing flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers.

The president says his advisers are discussing with the Defense Department the prohibition on pictures of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beyond that, Obama wouldn’t say whether he would keep the policy in place. He says he wants to understand all the implications involved before deciding how to proceed.

Agence France-Presse reports:

At the prompting of President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates Tuesday ordered a review of a ban on media coverage of the return of flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“From a personal standpoint, I think, if the needs of the families can be met, and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates told reporters.

Gates said he ordered the review after Obama said in a White House press conference Monday night that the White House was in the process of reviewing the ban “in conversations with the Department of Defense.” …

Gates said he had ordered a review of the ban over a year ago.

“The answer that I got back — and partly it was the result of contacts with the families — is that if the news media were at Dover, many of the families would feel compelled to be there for those ceremonies for their fallen hero.

“And for these families this would delay the return of the remains home. For others it would be a financial hardship to get to Dover. And there were some privacy concerns,” he said.

“I think that looking at it again makes all kinds of sense,” he said.

The Huffington Post has more.

[exclusive] “Prisoner Boxes” in Iraq

First Published Photographs of Wooden Imprisonment Crates

>>> In Iraq, some prisoners/detainees are kept in wooden crates known as “prisoner boxes,” so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Central Command asking for the following:

“Vanity Fair (Feb 2005 issue) has reported the existence of wood “prisoner boxes” being used by the US military in facilities in and around Baghdad. They are used to hold individual prisoners and detainees.

“I hereby request all photographs of these boxes, including empty boxes as well as boxes holding prisoners and detainees.”

Around nine and a half months later, CentCom responded by sending the three photographs on this page.

You are seeing the photos exactly as they were sent to me – as black and white printouts on standard printer paper, with creases from being folded into thirds. Two of the photos are extremely blurry and pixelated.

Considering that the average summer temperature in Baghdad is 111 F, and that temps can easily go above 120 F [source], it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be inside these boxes.

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Technical note: These photographs were released as black and white print-outs by the US Central Command on 10 Nov 2005 in fulfillment of FOIA request #2005-085, filed by Russ Kick on 27 Jan 2005.

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Zip file containing high-resolution scans of all three photo print-outs [12 meg]

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