[Marxism] Afghanistan debate heats up in UK

[Paul Flewers]

Re Lou P's posting. The British daily press and television news are in a
bizarre frenzy over the war in Afghanistan. Every British soldier who is
killed gets full prime-time treatment on the telly: lingering shots over
flag-draped coffins being unloaded from aeroplanes, parades of hearses
through the streets, interviews with colleagues, officers, family members
and friends. Every day, it seems, we're getting this. 

Clearly, the media is under official pressure to push all this. It's an
attempt to get people to rally around the state, the armed forces and the
government in whipping up public support for what is (judging by the serious
commentators who occasionally appear in the press) an unwinnable war. It
smacks of desperation. This year Britain had an Arms Services Day, the first
time we've ever had one of them.

The effect of this propaganda drive will decline as people get used to the
steady trickle of army deaths as this war grinds on. This war is not
popular, nor was the one in Iraq. Support for it is lukewarm, and this
campaign will not increase what little support it has. It is very easy, as I
have found on many occasions, openly to oppose this war and to defeat
pro-war arguments. The government's own propaganda -- that the war will help
stop terror in Britain -- is laughable even by New Labour standards.
Everyone knows that the Islamicist bombers who killed 50 people in London
four years back were British-born, and carried out their dreadful act in
response to British foreign policy, in particular the Iraq War.

The media campaign is absurd even by the government's own pathetic
standards. Military deaths are a tragedy for family members and personal
friends. But we do not have a conscript army here; it is entirely voluntary.
And anyone joining the British army these days knows that he will be
involved in a war. Showing military funerals every day won't encourage
people to join up. The overblown propaganda campaign will eventually
backfire. And of course too much publicity turns the general public away
from the desired effect, as it makes them more cynical, especially in a
situation like this of an unwinnable and pointless war ordered by a
deceitful government.

There is also the question of proportion. We are talking about low casualty
numbers here, 185 British servicemen have been killed in this war; 179 in
the occupation of Iraq, both totals measured over several years. Compare
that to the Second World War: there, 350 000 British servicemen were killed:
that was nearly 200 each day. Puffing up this current low number of military
deaths into some sort of official national catharsis will also undermine the
ultimate effectiveness of this propaganda campaign.

Paul F