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Bush Ignores Soldiers' Burials
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
October 30, 2003

On Monday and Tuesday, amid the suicide bombing carnage that left at least 34 Iraqis dead, three more U.S. servicemen were killed in combat in Iraq. In the coming days their bodies will be boxed up and sent home for burial. While en route, the coffins will be deliberately shielded from view, lest the media capture on film the dark image of this ultimate sacrifice. It is almost certain, as well, that like all of the hundreds of U.S. troops killed in this war to date, these dead soldiers will be interred or memorialized without the solemn presence of the President of the United States.

Increasingly, this proclivity on the part of President Bush to avoid the normal duty of a commander-in-chief to honor dead soldiers is causing rising irritation among some veterans and their families who have noticed what appears to be a historically anomalous slight.

..."It goes back to the reasons behind this war in the first place," continued Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. "We've got this constant rhetoric that supporting the troops is the equivalent of supporting the President's policies. If you're against the war then you're not for the troops. And this is one of the key things that show the lie of that. The President, the Pentagon and, to a lesser extent, the Congress has shown that they don't have any regard for the people who are fighting the war on their behalf."...