UK pop paper slams war 'fraud'

The Daily Mirror, once the biggest-selling daily in the UK (since eclipsed by the brashier Sun), made a sensational obeisance to its former image as a serious voice of conscience for the British people with its issue of Monday, October 29.

With the words THIS WAR IS A FRAUD occupying most of the front page, flagging an inside article by John Pilger, its chief foreign correspondent years ago, it also carried special articles from Afghanistan, and a leader, Voice of the Mirror, headed "We didn't fight the IRA like this, so why do these people keep telling us that relentless bombing is the ONLY way to defeat bin Laden ?"

The editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, had evidently impressed members of the Society of Editors at its annual conference in Belfast the previous week. Apparently a reformed character after a period of turbulence, including brushes with the Press Complaints Commission and others, he was now seen as a man of promise by serious media critics, notably Peter Preston in the Observer and Roy Greeslade in the Guardian.

In particular, he was praised for the conduct of his paper since September 11. He told the Belfast conference: "I hear Mirror secretaries talking of anthrax not Eastenders, bin Laden not Robbie Williams, the terrain of Northern Afghanistan not their next holiday in Crete.... There is a sudden and prolonged hunger for serious news and information."

This, Peter Preston wrote, was bad news for the Sun. The Mirror circulation went up, the Sun's went down. More importantly, on the wider stage, it was bad news for Mr Blair and his war cabinet. They could usually shrug off the Guardian and Observer as off-message, egghead papers. The Mirror, with its millions of readers, and even the Times on occasion (especially on October 30) - that is another matter entirely. ----------------------------------JB

Call for honesty by Coalition

It is three weeks since we were told that Taliban forces were 'evicerated'. It turned out to be demonstrably - and utterly - untrue..... The hapless contradictions over whether Osama bin Laden could we be seized, which we heard from US defence secretary Rumsfeld last Thursday, or the apparent ignorance about cluster bombs we heard from our own Clare Short are unforgivable.....

UK heavyweights back bombing

Rupert Murdoch's prestigeous British-based newspaper, the Sunday Times, and Canadian Conrad Black's Daily Telegraph are lending their weight to Prime Minister Blair's war policy (writes Will Huckleby, a member of the London-based press corps).

In its leader column of October 14, the Sunday Times slammed what it called the "defeatist chorus" and named in particular the liberal daily, the Guardian, and the weekly journal New Statesman. The paper returned to the theme a week later in a leader headed Keeping our nerve. Reports that these leaders were dictated by the proprietor, Australian American Mr Murdoch, were indignantly denied.

The biggest hitter in the Daily Telegraph was the veteran military historian, Sir John Keegan, revered by the paper's large proportion of right-wing retired military officers in its inevitably declining readership. Vintage jingoism was reflected in this passage: "Westeners fight face to face, in stand-up battle, and go on until one side or the other gives in.... Orientals, by contrast, shrink from pitched battle, which they often deride as a sort of game, preferring ambush, surprise, treachery and deceit as the best way to overcome an enemy...."

War leaders attack media critics

The US and UK governments have orchestrated a campaign against media questioning of war aims and methods (writes Archie Campbell from Washington). The emphasis is on high moral purpose and the need to go on bombing until Osama bin Laden and his terror network are destroyed.

What angers the leaders are the expressed fears that an entire country (the size of France) may be destroyed, and thousands of its innocent civilians either killed or starved to death as winter falls. The language of their spokesmen and women is significant, demonising the perceived opponents as evil, ruthless men with fanatic purpose (as was said of the Vietnamese who died in defence of their homeland).

Most of the critics on both sides of the Atlantic are among those who supported the original declared aim to root out and bring to justice the perpetrators of the September 11 murderous attacks. They are now reacting sharply to hints and suggestions that they are unpatriotic or even treacherous.