media. Our political and military leaders don't want a repeat of the  uncensored media coverage of the Vietnam War, when the true awful nature of war was shown to the American public every evening on the 6 o'clock news.  This coverage hastened the end of the war, as public opinion turned against both the war and the government.  No current government is brave enough to risk their own demise via the media and public opinion, so media restrictions have been imposed. The media have been effectively censored since 1990, at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War in Kuwait and Iraq.  The Pentagon imposed historically tight restrictions on media coverage of the battlefield, which is practically unchanged since.  Starting with the Gulf War, all news coverage had to be reviewed before it was released or published, ostensibly for security reasons. Some security restrictions clearly are needed, as media moustache Geraldo Rivera so ably demonstrated when he revealed operational details in a live broadcast from the 2nd Iraq War in 2003. Not only was coverage of the fighting restricted, images of returning military casualties were completely prohibited. The reasons given were the privacy of the families, and the "sancity of the mission."  This restriction was lifted in 2009, with families now being consulted as to whether they would consent to  media access.  Most families have said "Yes." The media landscape has also changed, which added to the decline of war coverage.  Media outlets have been consolidated under large public companies, and