The Truth Will Cost You Your Job

Remember the photo of the coffins of dead U.S. soldiers from the other day?

The woman who took the picture was fired by the contractor that employed her, at the urging of the U.S. military. They fired her husband, too, who also worked there, for good measure. The contractor sounds unhappy about it: "They were good workers, and we were sorry to lose them," [the company spokesman] said. "They did a good job out in Kuwait and it was an important job that they did."

The woman who took the picture, Tami Silicio, said, "It wasn't my intent to lose my job or become famous or anything." Of course, that's naive. Any infraction of a company rule can get you fired. She knew she wasn't allowed to take pictures of the coffins. (If she didn't realize it would be a major political issue to give the picture to a newspaper, then she's really naive.) It's a shame she and her husband lost their jobs over it, though.

It does go to show a couple of other things, too:

First, using private contractors allows you to really punish people who leak information that's embarassing to the government. You can fire a soldier, too, but it's much, much harder. Private employees will keep their mouths shut about what they see if they know they'll be on the next plane home if they talk.

Two, this shows how desperate the military is to keep the issue of war dead and injured under wraps. It wasn't enough to just ride out some controversy. They had to reach down and get the woman fired. They had to get her husband fired. It's vindictive.

Just as much of a shame is that this incident is considered normal. If it's noticed at all, rightwingers will express satisfaction that they were fired. Everyone else might be unhappy about it for a minute and then it will be lost in the maelstrom of bad news which is the Bush administration. These two people will join the ranks of the unemployed and the government will keep lying to us by omission. Everything's back to normal now, citizen. Go about your business.

Comments

[Carson]

I rember watching TV with my family and seeing US Soldiers being wounded and killed in Viet-Nam. Then I was the US Sodlier.

Then we called them 'body-bags'. Now we call them 'transfer tubes'. Camera crews are only allowed to film what the administration tells them they can film. I see plenty of footage, but never a wounded or killed American, very few Iraqies either for that matter. By comparison, any violent video game has more blood and gore.

We have been systematically desensitized by our government and media throughout the years that the horror of war is gone for us. Children grow up thinking that it will be cool to join up and go kill the enemy.

"Hittite law emphasized restitution rather than revenge. Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Semitic response--never to forgive and never to forget."

We, as Christians spend a lot of time vilifying Islam. I don't know enough about it to make a valid opinion. So it goes.

[fresburger]

Carson, I like that quote. Can you source it?

[Justin Faulkner]

Hey I thought you should check this out:

Fables of the Reconstruction