We (the public in the West) don't get to see the real pictures taken by professional photographers in Iraq because they are deemed too disturbing, and would be seen as offending sensibilities of the popcorn munching public.  So what we get are the softest pictures, while the less palatable photographs pile up on hard drives unused and unseen by anyone but the photographers themselves and editors who've been telling those same photographers for years now, don't bother to submit them for publication because it ain't going to happen.

If the US public got to see the pictures of the mangled bodies of 30 or 40 children after one of these car bombs goes off, with brains, intestines, lungs, livers and feces strewn across the ground and smeared on the walls.  Or the pictures of US sniper victims whose heads and bodies had been exploded by 50 caliber rounds, creating some ghoulish facsimile of a Jackson Pollock painting.  Or the thousands upon thousands of civilians who have been kidnapped and made to endure medieval torture's, the like of which haven't been seen since the Inquisition, living human bodies drilled, flayed, skinned and char broiled.  If Americans were being exposed to these photos on a daily basis, I have little doubt that we would have recoiled back across the Atlantic years ago.

If every American currently being sheltered from these images got to see this stuff on TV preempting the soap operas and American Idol, I imagine that such a cry would be heard throughout the land that even George Dubya c--k sucker would be forced sit up and listen.

If we had been exposed to these realities years ago, the American people might have demanded some kind of real progress in Iraq, instead of allowing this genocidal status quo to continue, and who knows perhaps we could have even altered the failed course of this misbegotten, illegal, immoral and unconstitutional war.

But of course this has all been part of the Bush plan, keeping photographers and journalists away from these nightmare scenes by refusing them military protection, and forcing them to hire mercenaries to do the job American soldiers should be doing.  Leaving dedicated impartial journalists, photojournalists and cameramen relatively unprotected in the red zone, while only inviting the more "reasonable" compliant and malleable journalists to enjoy the relative comfort and safety of the green zone and continuous military protection.  The Bush administration knows that if enough journalists die in Iraq it will help deter others from coming.

300+ U.S.casulties: Forward Base Falcon "Coverup"

Late on the evening of October 10, 2006, Iraqi resistance groups lobbed mortar and rocket rounds into the immense `Forward Base Falcon,' the largest American military base in Iraq, located 13 km south of the Green Zone in Baghdad. In addition to accurate mortar fire, Grad and Katyusha rockets were also used.
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After the initial shelling, fuel and ammunition stores began to erupt with massive explosions that could be heard, and seen, miles away inside the Green Zone where U.S. military and diplomatic units were heavily guarded.

The explosions, all of them termed "immense" by BBC reporters, continued throughout the night.
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When the flames had been brought under control on the morning of the 11th of October, primarily because the entire camp had been gutted, nine large American military transports with prominent Red Cross markings were observed by members of the foreign media taking off, laded with the dead and the wounded.

Over 300 American troops, including U.S. Army and Marines, CIA agents and U.S. translators were casualties and there also were 165 seriously injured requiring major medical attention and 39 suffering lesser injuries 122 members of the Iraqi armed forces were killed and 90 seriously injured members of same, were also evacuated to the U.S. military hospital at al-Habbaniyah located some 70km west of Baghdad.
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official U.S. DoD statements indicated that there were no deaths; that only a hundred men were inside the base guarding billions of dollars of vital military equipment and that there were "only two minor injuries to personnel," passes belief and certainly reality is more painful than propaganda.