September 3, 2001

The Media's Double Standards
Three "accidental" deaths deserve to be looked into again

SURREAL MOMENTS

The British press sometimes has surreal moments. Often those surreal moments involve the presence of British troops abroad. Considering how many British troops we have abroad and in how many places, you would expect a constant barrage of stories. Not so. When there is a major bombing raid on Iraq, it is not mentioned. I realised this when a bombing raid was covered on all the front pages and I thought "why are they talking about this, can't they discuss something more important"? I knew I had succumbed to the strange mix of ignorance and jaded cynicism that affects most of the nation when it comes to the foreign activities of our troops.

CONFUSION ON THE HOME FRONT

We used to know what they were there for. "There," being abroad. Usually it was to fight communism, or at least be there when the reds came over the border (which they rarely did – at least where we expected them to). Sometimes the troops were there to hold down some troublesome bit of the Empire that we hadn't peacefully divested, like Cyprus or Kenya. In rare times, it was a bit of both, like Malaya. It was often brutal, many British troops were killed, but there was a certain simplicity about it. Most Brits were prepared to accept that Soviet Communism did not offer a great future and that when leaving an empire it is always good manners to ensure a semblance of good order. Not everyone agreed with it, but there was a broad consensus. This meant that the British could be fairly informed about where their troops were and what they were doing.

EERIE SILENCE

Not so today. Maybe we are in too many places and tired of stories about "our boys" being under fire. Possibly the military is effective at censorship. Perhaps the press is squeamish about arousing possible public opposition to humanitarian interventions that they support. Knowing what little I do of human nature, I would say that there are probably elements of all of these explanations in this change in our press's behaviour. It is still eerie. The effect in the press is of sudden outrages in foreign countries interspersed with long periods of static when other affairs – often with far less British involvement – are reported. If foreigners die because of our actions it is rarely reported; hence my surprise at the reporting of the bombing of Iraq so many months ago.

DEAD LIONS

The one way to guarantee press coverage of a foreign entanglement is a British soldier's death or kidnapping. In Sierra Leone, long after we had been told that British troops had left, we suddenly found a couple of jeep-loads being kidnapped by our erstwhile allies. We are now told that half of our troops are about to leave, again. The same happened in Macedonia when a British soldier, Ian Collins, was killed. The circumstances are unclear, although it appears that some Macedonian delinquents were responsible. The reaction was telling. The British press did report on it, and the nationality of the killers was discussed – but there was a hint of the reaction that the British government feared. The right wing Daily Mail led with a headline asking why Ian Collins was sent to death, and reported that his father condemned the mission. Even the inept Tories got on to the act, with the leadership contender Iain Duncan-Smith, claiming that this was a mission too far. Too many deaths could cause problems.

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Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics, journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Mondays at Antiwar.com.