Friday, June 20, 2008 

Rally the poops.

Today's Scum front page:



and yesterday's Steve Bell:



Could they possibly be related?

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6/20/2008 09:50:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, March 08, 2008 

All the young people looked the same.

Who ever knew that the armed forces were so sensitive to having the odd word of abuse directed towards them? This is after all what has actually taken place, despite it being predictably blown out of all proportion by, who else, the Murdoch press. The suggestion that it might be better if forces in Peterborough didn't wear their uniform on the streets, for that was what it was, rather than the "ban" that newspapers love to crow about, was based on a few "isolated" incidents of abuse, and after an RAF nurse was specifically targeted for a few months in a row, presumably because she wore her uniform. The only real surprise is that no one has come out and specifically blamed the abuse on Muslims (although one officer in the Times said they couldn't wear uniforms in certain areas for fear of offending the sensitivities of "ethnic minorities"), just as the Sun previously did in Windsor, only to have apologise for printing lies.

All of this is being made out to suggest that the country doesn't have any respect for the armed forces and their heroic sacrifices out in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the contrary, it instead just amplifies the way that most in this country instead have a healthy disrespect both for those in authority and in uniform, and that some morons, rather than attacking the politicians on both sides of the Commons that are keeping the soldiers in Iraq for no reason whatsoever except as a huge mortar and rocket target are directing their anger and bile at those that have to obey orders even if they are from those who themselves have no respect for the armed forces.

Instead the opportunity is being used by the usual suspects to demand that we worship the army and soldiers in the same way that they are revered in the United States. Just because we don't turn out to welcome them home or applaud the moment we see someone marching about like a prat in uniform doesn't mean we don't appreciate them - it just means there's absolutely nothing to celebrate in what they're doing except that they've came back home safely. It's telling that it's the same newspapers that so backed the Iraq war that are now decrying at such a volume the apparent distrust and lack of love for the armed forces among the general public, when it's partly down to their support that their stock is so low. If the insanity of Iraq hadn't happened, firstly Afghanistan would likely be in a far better state than it currently is, and secondly none of the scandals involving British soldiers which have taken place since the invasion would have occurred. While it shouldn't have such an effect, you can't blame people who have opposed the war from identifying soldiers, who are just doing their job, as directly associated with what has taken place. Yes, the politicians should be getting it in the neck themselves, but you don't see many of them strutting about in such distinctive clothing, unless they happen to be Gerald Kaufman. The one and only reason worth supporting their stay in Afghanistan is that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the average Afghan wants them to be there.

I'm not exactly sure why they feel need to or should wear their uniform in public in the first place - more than fair enough if it saves them the bother of having to take another pair of clothes with them when they go out, but other than it seems almost a strange thing to do. In almost every other occupation which requires employees to wear uniform they usually can't wait to get out of it and into their "normal" clothes. The police and fire brigade don't go wandering about when they're not working in their garb; indeed, they'd likely be disciplined or worse if they did so. The words "red rag" and "bull" come to mind, and if the occasional soldier can't deal with the odd snide remark about their occupation rather than other occupations, with one soldier complaining about kids barracking him bless, I dread to think how they'll actually cope with service itself.

It's tempting to think, especially after last weekend's propaganda coup for the MoD that made even the prince himself turn towards to modesty, declaring he wasn't a hero, that the public at large that doesn't bend over backwards to be obsequious towards the armed forces has more in common with the actual rank and file than either hypocritical politicians who care little for those who return home broken and injured but who had no trouble in sending them in the first place, or the tabloid press with its "Our Boys" nonsense which is about 60 years out of date. This is the sort of garbage the Sun is urging in its leader today:

That’s why The Sun today calls on the nation to stand up for our brilliant Armed Forces.

Let’s all get behind them and make them feel how honoured and respected they are.

Of course they should wear their uniforms everywhere. Of course they should be welcomed everywhere.

Please do your bit. If you see a Services man or woman in the street, go up to them and tell them how much you admire them.

Buy them a pint or a cuppa. Make friends. Show appreciation.


Or you could let them get on with their lives and not embarrass both them and yourself by making a needless scene. They're not special just because they're in a uniform; they're ordinary men and women doing a job like anyone else, except they're risking their lives for generally crap pay. That's what we should be angry about. They deserve respect for doing so, but they shouldn't be treated differently because of it. The bullshit underlying much of this is evident in the Sun's final statement:

They fight for US. It is OUR country they defend. OUR lives they protect.

But they're not defending our country or protecting our lives at the moment, are they? You can in fact make a decent argument that their continued presence in both Afghanistan and Iraq makes us less safe. That however goes right over the top of the heads of both politicians and journalists with their own ulterior motives. Long may the decline of deference continue.

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Saturday, March 01, 2008 

Harry's lovely war.

Whatever your views on Prince Harry and his exploits in Afghanistan, one thing that can be agreed upon is that it has been a journalistic travesty. Not that the media signed up to the MoD's secrecy plan in the first place, as once all the tabloids were agreed, the rest of the press and the BBC could hardly break ranks, such would have been the outrage that would have dropped on their heads. That was probably the right decision in the circumstances, but the failure of everyone else across the planet to find out until they discovered that an Australian supermarket trashy tabloid had printed it back in the early days of January, and then the pathetic soft-pedal given to Harry and the Ministry of Defence was anything but a triumph.

It seems then if you want the latest gossip, you shouldn't head to the loathsome Matt Drudge, who spent his time during the Clinton years digging up every false scandal ever to emerge, or to Guido, who despite his numerous contacts in the media that knew about Harry's posting didn't get as much as a sniff about it, but to New Idea instead. Where it got the story from is anyone's guess, but back on January the 7th it revealed that Harry had gone with his regiment on a covert mission to Afghanistan, where he had already seen action. Apparently it didn't have a clue about the embargo in this country, but it must surely be the scoop of the year; and no one batted an eyelid. Indigo Red goes even further back, and finds discussion in first the Canadian press that he was training in the country for deployment, then articles in *shock* the UK press doing much the same, which might well have triggered the embargo, deal, or whatever it was. There might well have been D-Notices involved for those who thought of daring to go it alone, even though they too are just instructions, not guidelines that must be followed.

If that wasn't humiliating enough for the most tenacious press in the world™, then anyone with the slightest interest in hearing something other than the MoD's no doubt weeks in the polishing releases and the most pathetic questioning, or rather unquestioning of any soldier ever would have been left feeling short-changed. There wasn't so much as a word about Afghanistan itself, how badly the mission is in actuality going, or whether the other soldiers are enjoying it as much as Harry so evidently was, despite the nonsense that he was an ordinary soldier quite clearly being molly-cuddled with one of the safest jobs in the entire country, but there were instead plenty of wonderful photographs and staged videos for the press to savour. Watch as royal family member fires bloody big gun at nothing in particular! Marvel as he talks about targeting Terry Taliban! Laugh as he fails to ride motorbike dumped in the middle of nowhere!

When the death of his mother led to the biggest reverse ferret in press history, a woman they had previously dismissed and ridiculed day after day suddenly becoming the people's princess, you would have placed money on that being the biggest volt-face to ever happen. How typical that one of her own has broken that record! Gone is the boozing and carousing prince, getting sozzled on our money, a disgrace to the country referred to at least twice by the Sun as "dirty", and now here's Harry the Hero, the Sun's poster of the soldier prince going up across the country, while it solemnly intones that he's found his vocation and that everything must be sacrificed to ensure he can continue doing the job he so obviously loves.

You would of course expect that from the "popular" press, but even the broads fell into line. The Guardian, which itself devoted two pages yesterday to Harry's colonial exploits, outlines how the Times and Telegraph gave his mission seven and five pages respectively. Only the Independent dared to spoil the party by giving over a parsimonious single page to the secret hero. Even that coverage was sycophantic in the extreme, relating how Harry had retrained as a "forward air controller", reiterating how he was sitting in front of "Kill TV" or "Taliban TV" directing American F15 jets to their targets. None of them ever felt the need to question whether this is the best way to fight the war, or that human rights organisations estimate that over 230 civilians were killed in air strikes in Afghanistan in 2006, leading Hamid Karzai to plead in tears for the coalition forces to stop being so cavalier with the lives of those on ground. That might have been unpatriotic, or been construed as suggesting that Harry had killed civilians while blasting the 30 Taliban the Sun claimed he had eviscerated. They didn't point out when Harry said this was about "as normal as I'm ever going to get" that there is nothing ordinary about making life or death decisions through a computer monitor. We viciously attack suicide bombers or other terrorists for their cowardly nature, and are often right, but there is very little difference between that and the end result of dropping 500lb bombs from however many feet in the air onto houses which may or may not be full of Terry Taliban, directed from somewhere far removed via a screen. Even more startling was Harry's remark in one of the interviews that "he doesn't like England much", which in any other circumstances involving anyone else would have resulted in a quick media crucifixion for impugning on the name of the country the same press outlets often bemoan, but this was from the newly crowned hero we can all salute and be proud of. The less said about the craven BBC's coverage, voiced by that "bloody awful man" Nicholas Witchell in the most reverent of tones usually reserved for a state funeral the better.

The question has to be just how much was spent on this whole ridiculous fandango. How many man hours at the MoD went into working just how to get him in and then out if necessary in such absolute secrecy? Which PR firm did the sterling job of collating all the propaganda to be screened and printed on his return, or was that the MoD's work as well, involving the Press Association? Just how many individuals had to be directly bribed or bought off in some other way to keep silent? Was he really at any point in any sort of danger whatsoever, because it certainly doesn't look like it at first glance? Is this all to please the prince who threatened to leave the army after he wasn't sent to Iraq, or was it a stunt the MoD went along with because it instantly recognised its value in the propaganda war?

We should be fair to Harry. Unlike our leaders and their families on both sides of the Atlantic, at least he's been potentially prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country. If anything, he's the most senior figure from a family in sort of power to go to the front line in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and for that alone he deserves respect. All of this could however have been done without any sort of the pandemonium that prevented him from going to Iraq and then ended his stay in Afghanistan. Looking at the photographs of him in his full kit, body armour and helmet, no one would have the slightest clue that he was the third in line to the throne unless they were personally told. This was always the idiocy of announcing in the first place that he was going to be deployed: the MoD should have just sent him, told no one and not bothered with any deals with the media. They should have treated him like his comrades do: as an ordinary soldier, as that is after all what he is. It's to give too much credit to both the Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq to say that as soon as he was sent out they'd be searching for him because of the value of taking his life. If the Taliban had killed him during this trip, they wouldn't have known any better until the MoD themselves had admitted so. It's just as daft reporting today that extremists are already after him, about the only person they could find to denounce him being Anjem Choudary, the moron from al-Muhajiroun. The Scum babbles about threats being made against him by al-Qaida, with a message on "the terror group's website" about it. They must have set up their own page especially for the occasion, as al-Qaida has never had anything even approaching an "official" website since alneda.com was shut down in 2002.

You could put all of this down to "churnalism" or Flat Earth News, ninja turtle syndrome or otherwise, but that might be actually giving the coverage over the last few days some sort of label, explanation or excuse that it truly doesn't warrant. The exploits of one very important soldier have probably been given more exposure that the rest of the army's achievements and complaints have in the last couple of years. Soldier going to war/coming back from war isn't a story, unless they've come back in a body bag. The MoD might be celebrating a wonderful success in PR terms, but somehow you get the feeling that the unfortunates on the ground themselves, with another British soldier dying today in Iraq for no reason or point whatsoever, will not be thanking Harry for obscuring the futility of their current deployments.

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Thursday, February 28, 2008 

Soldier goes to war shock caption competition!

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Tuesday, February 12, 2008 

Flat Earth News and the Talibrum.

Both Garry and FCC have been pointing out how much yesterday's Sun front page splash about the "Talibrum" stinks to high heaven, and has all the markers of a piece of "Flat Earth News", planted in this case by the RAF, or a security source linked to them.

I agree completely. I think however that the story goes even deeper than being an obvious piece of unverifiable propaganda. Without wanting to get into conspiracy theories, there's a large number of reasons that suggest that even if the story is true, it's been planted for a particular reason.

Firstly, in order for it to get full exposure, it's been handed to the Scum over the weekend, most likely on the Sunday, for publication the following day. Newspapers are always at their lightest on Monday, making it more likely that such a story will either get top-billing or very close to it, as it did. Secondly, it comes after a week when both spying, bugging and listening in to others' conversations, whether they're those accused of crime or members of parliament has been at the very top of the news agenda. Not only that, but Afghanistan has been nearly a close second: a number of reports were released last week, all highly critical and little short of despairing of the situation on the ground, while Robert Gates was visiting European capitals in an attempt to humiliate Nato members into sending more combat troops into action. The backlash against the Afghanistan deployment is also reaching its highest point so far in this country: the opinion polls suggest that the public doesn't know what we're fighting for, or indeed why our troops are out there at all. They are of course quite entitled to feel that way: the defence secretary that ordered the rise in the numbers deployed suggested that the mission was going to be mainly reconstruction, and that he'd be happy if they returned "without firing a single shot". Instead the army has been facing what has been described as the most intense battles since the Korean war.

The report therefore hits all the right buttons in numerous ways. Just as questions are being asked about how far the routine surveillance of lawyers, MPs and those accused of crime is going, the Sun splashes with a report that lauds just how wonderful their listening in to the Taliban is. There's even this fantastic quote:

“Eavesdropping seldom has a good image.

“But let’s hope the perseverance and dedication of our listeners-in-the-sky continues to save the lives of our men and women.”


Could the subtext of such a remark being any less forceful? The inference is clear; whether it's listeners-in-the-sky or buggers in prisons, all of this is for one purpose, and that's to save lives. The Sun's leader last week on Sadiq Khan made almost the exact same point. No one should be above the law, especially not greedy MPs, and who could possibly object to such dangerous individuals as Babar Ahmed being listened in to?

The message is little different on Afghanistan instead. Just as the "mission" seems to be hitting massive problems, with everyone suggesting much more effort is needed if anything is to be achieved, the Sun is conveniently slipped information which gives the impression that even if everything isn't going well on the ground, then things are fantastic in the air. They can listen in to conversations to such an extent that they can tell that some of the fighters have Yorkshire or Birmingham accents! This is also a classic diversionary tactic: rather than the Taliban being faceless, brutal but indigenous fighters, which is itself a crass simplification of how individuals are being paid to fight, the battles between drug and war lords for control of the poppy crop, and the involvement of jihadists, they include traitorous Brits who are fighting against their countrymen. The loathing can therefore be much easier directed against such individuals, whose motives can be distilled much easier than those of the other fighters.

Garry makes the point that the Sun has now compromised this intelligence gathering method, but this is a minor inconvenience for whoever wanted the information out in the first place. In any case, Taliban fighters ought to be more than aware of how they're being monitored: one of the major reasons al-Qaida was so successfully broken up after 9/11 was because bin Laden and his cronies had only two major ways of getting in contact with the wider world. One was bin Laden's satellite phone, which he must have known was being listened in on, and the other the switchboard they directed all of their calls through in Yemen, which the FBI successfully found out about and enabled them to map the links of al-Qaida across the globe (source: the Looming Tower).

Nick Davies' other substantial point about how Flat Earth News gets started is also valid here. As soon as a report as unverifiable as this one comes out, even if it has the dirty fingerprints of security sources all over, the major news agencies are likely to follow it up, even if it can't be checked, mainly because they now don't want to be accused of missing something supposedly major. If other newspapers don't jump on the story, then the press agencies likely will, who are now serving ever more news services with ever tighter resources, which makes checking information even more difficult in the time frame they're allotted for getting stories written and out. A quick search on Google News suggests that the story has at least spread to the Metro, the Scotsman and the Bradford Telegraph. Because churnalism resembles Chinese whispers remarkably, the story is changed subtly and added to as it goes. For instance, the Daily Mail, while basically copying the whole of the story out from the Sun, adds these two similarly completely unverifiable statements:

The Taliban are thought to be recruiting an increasing number of fighters from Britain after RAF experts overheard secret transmissions from the Afghan frontline spoken in broad Midlands and Yorkshire accents.

The discovery indicates that a growing number of British-born Muslim are turning their backs on the West and moving to Afghanistan to be trained as fighters.

How can any journalist, let alone one on the Daily Mail, back up those two short sentences with anything approaching a reliable source? The simple fact is that the journalist doesn't know and can't know, but they add something to the story and help it on its way. As Davies sets out in the opening chapter, this was how the Millennium Bug panic got started, with those who had good intentions but didn't know how badly the changeover was going to affect computer programs going public with their concern, which was then hyped up by the journalists who didn't know themselves, then again by the initial experts who felt they had to go one better to keep the story in the public eye. It becomes a vicious circle, and that was before the end of the world crew got involved. Obviously this story is not going to become a new millennium bug style fiasco, but this is before the neo-con jihadist monitoring blogs get on the story, as one already has.

The source for the article has then had their job successfully done for them. Things aren't so bad in Afghanistan; we're listening into them from the air, to such an extent we can tell they're British. Spying in such a way is vital for our security; it saves the lives of our men and women, and don't let the civil liberties brigade tell you differently. As said above, the story might be true, it might not be. That however palls into significance into how it will affect minds, regardless of its authenticity. We don't need our government to control the media in order to deliver their propaganda: it's current incarnation and values make certain that it will get in regardless.

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Thursday, January 11, 2007 

Scum-watch: Bring on the suicide girls!

I would have missed this one if it hadn't been for Tim over at Bloggerheads. The Scum, apparently informed of a "secret intelligence report", has this warning for our troops in Afghanistan: the suicide girls are coming for you. (Don't get too excited: they're not those suicide girls.)

FIFTEEN women suicide bombers have been sent to murder British troops in Afghanistan.

Taliban chiefs have ordered them to dress as beggars or teachers and hide devices under burkas, a secret intelligence report has warned.

It marks an alarming new tactic in the Afghan conflict, although women suicide bombers have been used in Iraq.

Army bosses say it is almost impossible to detect the killers covered from head to toe. Troops in war-torn Helmand province are also reluctant to search women as it offends local sensitivities.

The bombers are believed to be Pakistani, Arab or Chechen. Many fell under the influence of al-Qaeda after being widowed in recent conflicts.

A military source added: “We’re pretty good at detecting male suicide bombers. But women will be almost unstoppable. Because of their burkas, the first time you’ll know she’s a bomber is when she explodes.”

An MoD spokesman said last night UK troops were “the best in the world at spotting new and emerging threats”.

Firstly, the image used by the Sun of a woman in a veil isn't a burqa, it's a niqab. The burqa is a full face covering, involving a netted mesh where the holes for the eyes on niqabs are, so they've cocked that one up. Secondly, the Sun or the intelligence report is really hedging its bets on where the "bombers" are going to be from. They're either Pakistani, Chechen, or, err, Arab, so from anywhere then. The Christian Science Monitor reports that there have been five suicide bombings involving women in Iraq, and some of those were failures, or from outside the country, including the one by the Belgian convert to Islam Muriel Degauque. You also have to wonder about the one involving the two women shortly after the end of the war; trigger happy troops may well have succeeded in hitting the gas tank when the car failed to stop, rather than been killed by two women in a car bombing.

The majority of female suicide bombers have been either Chechen or Palestinian, in both cases fighting in their own internal struggles, although women have also taken part in bombings in both Sri Lanka and Lebanon, again in their own conflicts. None of them had fallen under the influence of al-Qaida, as the Sun states, although it's possible the ones from Iraq could have done, although again, there's such a disparate number of Islamist groupings there that it would be next to impossible to be certain. It seems odd that female fighters from Chechnya would go to fight with the Taliban, especially to carry out suicide bombings. Veterans of the conflict in Chechnya may have gone to fight with the Taliban, but for women to do so would be extraordinary, which is why this report is so likely rubbish. The only report I can find of any female suicide bombers from Pakistan is this one from the BBC, reporting the arrest of two sisters suspected to be in training, both the nieces of a known militant. With the madrasas and the whole situation on the border it wouldn't blow my mind (groan) if there were potentially willing female suicide bombers, but again it seems this is more based on concern rather than fact.

You also have to wonder about the potential impact such a report has back here at home. Right on queue, one of the commenters, as Bloggerheads notes, screams:

NOW TELL ME ,WHY THERE IS A DEBATE ABOUT WEARING THESE VEILS IN THIS COUNTRY...

Because one minister with at least half-decent intentions questioned whether there was concern about the women wearing them were forced into doing so, and how other people then reacted. What happened was that the tabloid media then had a field day, turning it into a question about religion and security when the original comment had nothing to do with it. The report isn't suggesting that veiled women over here are going to carry out suicide attacks, but in the current climate, with police officers excusing themselves for failing to catch men like Mustaf Jamma by instead blaming it on them escaping wearing veils, whether there's any truth to the rumour or not, it would only take a major crime to be committed by someone wearing a veil now for the whole matter to explode into a frenzy of demands to ban the garment, and not just from the Express. The whole issue is incredibly sensitive, but you can trust the Scum to pounce no matter what.

Elsewhere, there's this huge piece of congratulatory back-slapping, provided by Jack Straw:

PAPARAZZI harassment of Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton was condemned as "appalling" by Commons Leader Jack Straw today.

Mr Straw praised News International - owners of the Sun - for a self-imposed ban on using paparazzi shots of Miss Middleton and urged other news groups to follow suit.

News International has confirmed it will not publish future paparazzi pictures of Miss Middleton - a decision which affects The Sun, the News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times and free newspaper thelondonpaper.

All very noble. But what was the Scum's solution to all Ms Middleton's problems, as suggested yesterday?

Cough up Wills

KATE MIDDLETON is just another civilian who happens to be going out with a Prince.

But as a young woman who may one day become Queen, she needs protection.

Until she is engaged, the cost cannot come out of the public purse. Prince Charles got round this by paying out of his own pocket to guard Camilla Parker Bowles.

Prince William should take a leaf out of Dad’s book.

How kind! Photographers everywhere take notice: you can stand outside someone's house every morning, in effect stalking them wherever they go, and even then your newspaper will demand that their boyfriend stumps up the cash to protect them. One has to wonder how Ms Wade would respond to having the paps seated outside her door every morning, invading her privacy constantly. You'd have to think that she wouldn't much like it.

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