You'll be telling me next that if I don't like it I should go and live under the Taliban. I'm not buying it, this is a 24 carat PR stunt from top to bottom with Prince Harry's (doubtless genuine) wishes or courage the least of anyone's concerns. Check the BBC stories (particularly the tenses used) - they've clearly had a deal with the MOD to follow Harry around and film him machine gunning the desert and sitting with his helmet and jacket off holding a phone. Presumably a documentary is in the offing. 'Hey, proles, pretty distraction over here! Lookee, lookee! Don't worry about the serious stuff, Mature, Serious Wise Men are spending your money making sure you don't have to do any difficult thinking, just keep watching'. Don't believe the hype. The two things our presence in Afghanistan is giving us are heroin and dead and injured soldiers.
Like I said, I'm not buying it. Calling them 'heroes' and not examining what they're doing isn't supporting the troops, it's conniving in sending them to pointless death, injury and mental illness. We *know* all this now, there's no excuse for ignorance. If you're so keen on 'the troops' go and see what they're saying on ARRSE or elsewhere. There's a horrible lazy streak that treats 'The Troops' as an abstract concept and hides at the merest suggestion that sending people to fight pointless unwinnable wars far from home isn't a good idea.
[Less splenetically, the chances of this being kept secret were near zero, since half Fleet Street must have been bought off or silenced in some way. They pay people to follow Harry around, after all, you'd notice him not being around for two months plus. The magazine that broke the story in Australia is read by 10% of the population, so why the secrecy here?]
-- update --
i was being harsh on the BBC. Actually, it was *all* the major news outlets, with the 'journalism' being done by the MOD press people, i.e. spin doctors. Do the usual criticisms of the government over media manipulation not apply when someone puts 'Prince' in front of their name?
The BBC and co. basically signed up to receive propaganda from the MOD in return for their silence and co-operation. So much for press freedom. Oh, and the chances of Harry being in Afghanistan being a 'hero' right now are zero, the arrangement was that he'd be flown out if the story broke.
Quote:
Under the agreement, if the embargo was broken by British media Prince Harry was expected to leave the war-torn nation.
In the case that the story was broken by foreign media first, as has happened today, British media were "implored to resist diving in" at least until he has been taken to safety.
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So that was all a waste of everyone's time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...sandpublishing