ON MANŒUVRES

During the near-month that I was thwarted from going on line by BT Broadband’s tardiness, arrogance and incompetence, there were many developments in the real world that made my blog finger itchy. The capture of a group of British sailors by Iranian forces, their videotaped humiliation and the self-inflicted wounds by which they handed Tehran the moral victory once back home would certainly have drawn me to the keyboard.

The misjudgment of allowing members of the apprehended party – inevitably in practice the two dumbest sailors, Mr Bean and the chain-smoking mum – to sell their accounts to the tabloids made both the military and the government a laughing stock around the world, especially in the Middle East. Which of us wouldn’t volunteer to spend a fortnight relaxing in the custody of a foreign land if the reward were a six-figure sum for confirming a tabloid editor’s prejudices? (Not me, actually, but then I’ve been to Tehran and I have no wish to return, especially not in its present volatile state).

Meanwhile there has been a will-he-won’t-he fracas – it hardly merits the word “debate” – concerning HRH Prince Harry and his loudly expressed desire to get himself killed in Iraq, either in an explosion or by beheading as a captive. When the inevitable happens, remember how I warned you that the media would hail him as a hero, whatever he was actually doing at the time of his demise.

The establishment’s need to dress up the playboy princeling’s behaviour (past, present and future) in myth-making terms is very germane to the larger point I want to make. That concerns the military’s most ill-advised accommodation with the media’s unsubtle voyeurism about any matter that can be passed off as “human interest”.

There was a time, not so long ago, when all military matters were deemed secret, confidential and not for public discussion. To report even quite banal aspects of military management was a breach of the Official Secrets Act. Of course, the culture of confidentiality allowed all manner of ills to be winked at in service life and I certainly deplore such unaccountability. Indeed, I remain of the view that no profession, including the military, should be allowed to act as judge and jury in examinations of breaches of the rules, especially where the civil law ought to take an interest.

But inevitably the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Now top brass are becoming familiar spokesmen on news bulletins, ready with their sound bites and their pat answers. Successive prime ministers and home secretaries used to hold to the line that upon military issues they never confirmed nor denied any proposal or rumour. Mr Blair still says as much on intelligence questions but we already know a great deal more about the workings of MI5 and MI6 than any previous generation did.

As far as military operations are concerned, it is now standard practice that both print and broadcast journalists talk to military personnel on the front line, before, after and sometimes during engagement with hostile forces. A new term has rapidly established itself to describe journalists who accompany troops in war situations over a sustained period: those reporters are “embedded”.

It’s hard to figure why the commanders should believe that, on balance, more is gained than lost by this dubious accessibility. War is characterized by dehumanizing tendencies. Individual combatants are rather more likely to be seen in an alarming or shaming light than in an inspiring one, even when the unheroic is only expressed in the banality of their language.

Doubtless the front line equivalent of paparazzi will hound 2nd Lieutenant Windsor – or is he a colonel by now? – to ensure that plenty of pics are seen back home. I can see it now: “Prince Wazza!!” as the poor boy makes use of the latrine he has just dug in the sand. I imagine his majestic grandmother would have preferred it if the first intelligence of Harry’s tour of duty in Iraq had emerged upon his return. On the other hand, the Palace is no doubt advised to go for the headlines just as avidly as the rest of the establishment.