Excerpted from Joan Ryan klink above:

And publications that do show wounded or dead soldiers are inevitably accused of being unpatriotic. They are not supporting the war effort. What would happen, the accusers say, if Americans had seen the horror of D-Day? Some realities, they say, should stay in the bunkers and the MASH units. If you regularly printed graphic photos of wounded and dead soldiers, no one would ever enlist. Who would fight our wars?

Maybe nobody, forcing us finally to tap into the world's best and brightest to determine ways of achieving our goals without using lives and body parts as currency.

I wish every newspaper in America could have run the New England Journal of Medicine photos next to Rumsfeld's mug shot on the day he shot off his mouth. It would have ruined some breakfasts, yes. But when our soldiers are dying horrible deaths and surviving unspeakable wounds, the least we can do is bear witness.

E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.


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