On the right is a photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, of New Portland, Maine, in happier times.

Below is a photo of him dying, after being struck by an RPG in Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense of Robert Gates tried to strong arm the Associated press into not distributing the photograph.

It is Secretary Gates behavior, and not that of the Associated Press which is repulsive.

In Bob Gates world, or for that matter, in George W. Bush’s world, there must be no reporting of the realities of war.

Following the Vietnam War, the defense establishment concluded that the only way to deal with bad press is to muzzle the press, hence the press restrictions in Grenada, the Gulf War, the invasions of Afghanistan, and Iraq.

In there world, there is no Bob Capa, documenting, and honoring soldiers at (top to bottom) Omaha Beach, or the Spanish civil War, of the invasion of France in 1940 (I think).

Far from being decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency,” as secretary Gates suggests, these pictures reveal the sacrifices of our fighting men, and honor them.

People like Bob Gates want to bury this sacrifice, because in showing it for all to see, it will sometimes raise questions about whether that sacrifice is truly justified, and that is not acceptable in the minds of the old men who send the young men to die.

In addition to being a craven way to think, as it implies an unwillingness to support one’s own ideas, it is a slap in the face of the idea that it is civilians who decide when and where we fight, and when it is no longer worth it for us to fight.

This is about REMFs covering their own flabby, generally lily-white, asses.