THERE'S BEEN SOME FUSS OVER AN AP PHOTO

The AP distributed a picture of a Marine in Afghanistan who was dying of his wounds and Sec. Gates was very upset. I don't know why the AP deserves to be attacked because the decision to publish is left to the AP's subscribers. I also don't understand why we need to be shielded from the real effects of war. That wasn't the case in WW II, as you can see from this famous example:

The photo of three dead American soldiers lying in the sand on shoreline near half sunken landing craft on Buna Beach, Papua New Guinea was now considered a war classic. Taken by George Strock in February 1943, it was not published until its September 20th 1943 issue. In that September, this photo and other equally gruesome and graphic pictures of WWII were finally OK’d by the Office of War Information’s censors, in part because President Roosevelt feared that the American public might be growing complacent about the war and its horrific toll.

The Washington Post argued that the pictures “can help us to understand something of what has been sacrificed for the victories we have won.” Images of dead soldiers appeared regularly after that. Efforts were made to crop the photos or obscure the victims’ faces, name tags and unit insignia.