{"id":7,"date":"2006-10-24T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=7"},"modified":"2006-10-24T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T20:00:00","slug":"downing-street-vs-the-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2006\/10\/downing-street-vs-the-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Downing Street vs. The Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister rolls into town, Mr Blair’s official spokesman has criticised media coverage of Iraq.<\/a> That sounds fair. The media criticise the Prime Minister, why not give a little back?<\/p>\n

Well, we all know the conventional wisdom on Iraq is that the invasion replaced tyranny with anarchy. Conventional wisdom misses the point. <\/p>\n

Despite public assurances to Mr Salih<\/b>, he is doubtless aware that the Iraqi people matter very little to the British public. We were relatively nonplussed when Saddam Hussein<\/b> was exterminating his fellow Iraqis, and now they are locked in a sectarian conflict we only really register our concern when they attack a common enemy that we do recognize, British troops.<\/p>\n

Even British casualties, where they occur in ones and twos at regular intervals, evoke little public interest. They mirror public apathy about Northern Ireland<\/b>, where soldiers dying in ones and twos were generally ignored. According to academics<\/a>, 498 British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1997. That\u2019s around 19 every year. Iraq is already resulting in more deaths, in a more demanding environment where accidents can be as lethal as roadside bombs. The deaths leave young families and distraught relatives. But those deaths have not yet reached a point where they represent a political problem.<\/p>\n

Public apathy, however, is a problem. Because there are wider strategic issues at stake than the future welfare of the Iraqi people, or the threat posed by their former oppressor. But because the public rhetoric of the war is limited to \u2018supporting the Iraqi people,\u2019 lambasting Saddam Hussein and \u2018supporting our boys,\u2019 public debate remains in a kind of deliberate adolescence. <\/p>\n

We are not in Iraq<\/b> to support the Iraqi people. If we were in the business of invading countries on that basis, the queue would stretch round the block. We are not in Iraq to prosecute Saddam Hussein for crimes past, although that may eventually be a happy consequence of our presence.<\/p>\n

No, we are in Iraq to support the United States, our oldest and most important ally and the only global superpower. Our decision to stay or go is measured by the degree to which that alliance is important to us. The cost of that policy is measured by the Treasury and by the ability of our small volunteer army to prosecute it effectively. These matters are important and demand careful consideration. Our executive might elicit more sympathy if it engaged publicly with people who wish to take the debate seriously. Until then, blaming media coverage will not remedy the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister rolls into town, Mr Blair’s official spokesman has criticised media coverage of Iraq. That sounds fair. The media criticise the Prime Minister, why not give a little back? Well, we all know the conventional wisdom on Iraq is that the invasion replaced tyranny with anarchy. Conventional wisdom misses the point. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}