The release of these photos has one single function for most of those news sources that wish to print them: to use them as a political weapon.

The comments by many of those quoted in this article make this political motivation obvious.

In other words, the objective is to, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch puts it, "manipulate[s] Americans' perceptions of the war." Do you honestly think that paper is doing this to allow "our young men and women a last reverential salute from the country for which they died?" Or is it to give the war effort another kick in the teeth?

In their eagerness to paste them on the front page, some papers accidentally printed shots of the coffins of dead astronauts.

The photos provide no real new information--casualty numbers are no secret--but play directly on the emotions of the perceptual mentalities that are the target of the political agenda.

Interesting to compare this "people have a right to know" attitude with the objections some in the same media made to showing pictures of people diving from the top of the burning World Trade Center.