If you are not regularly reading Michael Yon, you are really missing out on something interesting.
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Real reporting from IraqSamizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts) · Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs · UK affairs June 9th, 2007 |
 14 comments to Real reporting from Iraq |
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Yes, I have been reading Michael’s commentaries, and even donated some pounds to his website (x2 in dollars :-). The sad thing is that British troops get better press and commentaries from an American journalist/writer than from the UK press; Michael’s articles get “aired” in FoxNews, but all the UK media I have seen just ignore it even if they probably do not have any reporter walking around with the troops like he does.
I hadn’t come across this writer before, but he demonstrates clearly the huge gap between the heroic efforts of those on the ground and the appalling ‘leadership’ they have at home.
Unfortunately, this too often gets lost in the strident tone of those who believe that this war is a stupid and costly mistake. That is my view too, but perhaps because I am of an age when most of my parents generation – and indeed many of mine – served in WW2, Korea, Malaya or Cyprus I still recognise and respect the efforts of those whose job it is to go and be shot at on my behalf.
Frederick Davies,
The sad thing is that British troops get better press…
I suggest that’s not really the case. They get more press there, not better. It is a question of context, cultural and political.
Cultural: The British public generally thinks well of its fighting troops, and doesn’t constant reassurance about it. Likewise you can watch a whole day’s British TV news and not see a Union Flag once. This doesn’t mean British people don’t love their countries; they just don’t feel social pressure to demonstrate loyalty all the time. Nor are we a militaristic society. We don’t think that an account of soldiers doing their job properly has any more consequence than one of postmen ditto.
Political: The war is unpopular, but a peripheral issue here. Partly we’re not interested, partly that last cultural point means British viewers would find such pieces, presented as current affairs rather than character documentary, empty. Fox network in particular is a cheerleader for the war and implies by context that these are stories of heroism in a good cause. British TV news is obliged to be neutral on matters of domestic political controversy, so could never take that line. But in any case, such an angle is unsalable here, and the one that is – our chaps doing solid work in pursuit of a planless mistake – just isn’t a story meriting space.
Clearly Guy has a great sence of humour.
Clearly Guy has a great sence of humour.
That could also explain the absence of the Union flag as well. 🙂
Not from the newspapers.
I think Guy is right – we simply don’t have the same reverence for the flag as the physical and metaphorical embodiment of the country that seems to prevail in the US outside a few Paisleyites in Northern Ireland). That says nothing however about love of country or patriotism.
Guy, you are dancing away from your original statement, which was:
Your rebuttal may or may not be true, but it does not apply to your original statement.
ian,
As we only have one national team and you have four, more appropriate comparison would be to the English flag (of St. George), not the Union Flag (Which includes St.George’s). And the English flag is highly controversial. Even for World Cup Football in which England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all have separate teams making the Union flag entirely unsuitable. Any form of patriotic or national fervor, even in support of sports, is suppressed and discouraged in the UK.
I think Guy’s statement is somewhat tenuous, or at least an optimistic interpretation.
Guy, you are dancing away from your original statement … Your rebuttal may or may not be true, but it does not apply to your original statement.
It does apply. But as supplementary evidence that the source is a cultural phenomenon, rather than a question of political controversy. Sports is also less of a big deal here, though not so much less.
Outside Northern Ireland, the union is accepted even among nationalists (Scots, Welsh) as a fact, even if it is not one they like very much. So it is not regarded as politically controversial that way. Welsh and Scots emblems are more displayed in their respective countries than the UK ones are anywhere.
What is true is that display of the Union Flag outside a formal context is regarded as crude, in poor taste, and is widely associated with neo-fascist groups. Perhaps there’s some parallel with the display in the US, not of the Stars and Stripes, but of the Stars and Bars. One can (just about) see it done with neutral and civilized intent. The charitable interpretation, on spotting a random example, is as a vulgar exhibition of local loyalty. But it leads one to be on guard for the worst.
The code is a subtle one, however. Paint your entire car, á la Austin Powers, and that’s light-hearted celebration, which is OK; put a sticker over the EU stars on a number plate, it is a mild repudiation of Brussels; fly a flag or have a sticker elsewhere on the car, and you are marking yourself as candidate BNP member.
Michael Yon’s blog is an interesting read. I am not surprised the troops covered are gallant. I think it is one-sided to portray any group of men as being gallant to the exception of everything else.
Guy, you say a lot with few words here. Nice.
Guy et al.;
The undertext that the effort is pointless and by implication evil and illegal is preposterous in the face of the decades of vile abuse by an honest-to-God tyrant that preceded it. They do exist, BION, and squeamishness about the heavy-handed methods needed to derail them is just that: wish for results without effort.
Well, Yon is documenting the effort. Your suppressed guilt at being unable to acknowledge, much less meet, the challenge they face is the source of your malign denigration of those who can.
Stuff it.
Guy, you said nothing about newspapers in your original comment that drew my reply. You brought them up solely to defend the statement you made expressly in reference to “TV news”. Rephrasing your original statement to say something it didn’t is classic strawman.
And as for your equating of the Flag of England and the Confederate flag (the Stars and Bars), the Confederate flag is not and never has been the flag of anywhere I have lived. Furthermore, the Confederate flag has never been the flag of any place or group showing allegiance to my present government.
The Confederate flag represents a national government that was violently and deliberately destroyed by my nation’s present government with very great loss of life.
The only way you can stretch your statement to the point of accuracy is to stipulate that either ‘A’, England was conquered by the Union as happened to the Confederation, or that ‘B’, England never was part of the Union but completely ceased to exist when the Union was formed. James the First/Fourth aside, neither of these has ever to my knowledge been popularly accepted. Further more, St. George’s flag is the PRESENT FLAG of England.
You inexplicably make the statement that “Welsh and Scots emblems are more displayed in their respective countries than the UK ones are anywhere” in defense of your belief that when the English display their “emblems”, “it leads one to be on guard for the worst.” After all, “The charitable interpretation, … is as a vulgar exhibition of local loyalty.” Charitable?
I assume in your anti-ID card efforts you have some allies with whom you have deep philosophical and perhaps moral differences. Are we to assume you share all the beliefs with people with whom you share some values? Are we equate every display of a No2ID sticker to indicate the worst traits of any who support your efforts?
The fact that anyone who shows admiration for and identification with England and all of its culture and history, the land of Shakespeare and Wren; of Newton, Babbage and Diroc, and far too many more to name here, cannot – may not – must not – display the current flag of their own nation on presumption of being a racist bigot is a said state. England has, without a doubt, created and demonstrated the greatest liberal government tradition, ever. And now, it is committing cultural and historical suicide.
The first step in destroying a civilization is to destroy its history. The first step in destroying its history is to denigrate it. First, any pride in that history must be destroyed. Pride in the intellectual and political traditions of England has and is being slandered with guilt by association. You and the people who’s views you represent are picking the worst and most flawed example of traditionalist and smearing them in the face of anybody who dares stoop so low as to actually display any pride of history and culture.
Flags and your attitudes towards them are only a small symptom of this Union wide campaign. My sister and her husband recently returned from the UK and she said they had to shut the radio off. She says your radio is perpetually filled with amazingly bitter attacks on all things English.
Meaning what? Is it not possible that what he reports is really what he sees?