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epitaph
from the
imperial
graveyard
The American war
dead disappear
into the darkness
ColdType
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s
TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became
Obama’s, has just been published by Haymarket Books.
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A
merica’s heroes? Not so much.
Not anymore. Not when they’re
dead, anyway. Remember as the
❝
Nor were they
tion or simply the loss of public support in
the opinion polls. Admittedly, many of the
so-called lessons of the Vietnam War were
invasion of Iraq was about to likely to forget often based on half-truths or pure mythol-
begin, when the Bush adminis- the effect of ogy, but they were no less powerful or in-
tration decided to seriously enforce a Pen- the “body fluential for that.
tagon ban, in existence since the first Gulf count,” offered In the Vietnam years, the Pentagon had,
War, on media coverage and images of the by US military for instance, been stung by the thought
American dead arriving home at Dover Air spokesmen in that images of the American dead coming
Force Base in Delaware? In fact, the Bush- late afternoon home in body bags had spurred on that
era ban did more than that. As the Wash- press briefings era’s huge antiwar movement (though, in
ington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote then, it in Saigon, reality, those images were rare). Nor were
“ended the public dissemination of such the South they likely to forget the effect of the “body
images by banning news coverage and Vietnamese count,” offered by US military spokesmen
photography of dead soldiers’ homecom- capital in late afternoon press briefings in Saigon,
ings on all military bases.” the South Vietnamese capital. Among dis-
For those whose lives were formed in illusioned reporters, these became known
the crucible of the Vietnam years, includ- as “the Five O’clock Follies.” They were
ing the civilian and military leadership supposedly accurate counts of enemy dead,
of the Bush era, the dead, whether ours but everyone knew otherwise.
or the enemy’s, were seen as a potential In a guerrilla war in which the taking of
minefield when it came to antiwar opposi- territory made next to no difference, the
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