British media whips up war hysteria

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, SEPT. 24. Britain is well and truly in the grip of a war hysteria - driven as much by 24-hour news channels, combative tabloid jargon and hawkish noises from the political establishment as by what Left-wing commentators see as a perverse ``longing'' among a generation that missed the ``great'' war to see some action, finally.

``Too much jaw-jaw, not enough war-war. But now the trumpet of test finally sounds,'' is how a former editor of The Guardian, Mr. Peter Preston summed up the mood as newspapers, dripping with nationalistic fervour, reported the arrival of Britain's crack SAS troops in Afghanistan and The Sunday Telegraph had the ``West at War'' slug spread over 19 of its 34 pages. One newspaper sensationally reported the possibility of a chemical and biological terrorist attack on Britain and warned that the country was ``dangerously unprepared'' for it. The sale of gas masks, we were told by another newspaper, had risen sharply and emergency services were on ``full alert''.

For the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair a week of war diplomacy has done what his huge election victories couldn't. Suddenly he is the most popular political leader, his aggressive posturing putting even the Tory hard Right under the shade with the party's new gung-ho leader, Mr. Ian Duncan Smith struggling to match Mr. Blair's purposeful stride towards Churchillian heights. A Times journalist who accompanied Mr. Blair on his 9,000-mile trans- Atlantic diplomatic shuttle this week said at the start of the journey ``I was not sure that Mr. Blair meant Britain to go to war (but 43 hours later)...now I am certain that he does.'' He noted ``something newly hawkish'' about Mr. Blair's face - ``the face of a man who feels the burden (and the spotlight) of history upon him.

Never before has public opinion been so overwhelmingly on his side with two-thirds of the electorate, according to a poll in The Observer, backing his performance in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in America. A whopping 63 per cent believed that Britain was ``at war'' - a belief undoubtedly fed by media headlines and images of British army tanks, U.S. marines in battle gear and B-52 bombers menacingly streaking across the skies. Men were more vocal in their support of Mr. Blair's war efforts, though the majority opposed blanket approval of U.S. retaliation. Women, it would seem, are the only peaceniks left ahead of the U.S. President, Mr. George Bush's ``first war of the 21st century''. A group of peace protesters gathered outside Downing Street on Saturday to oppose violence but with the T.V. rolling news pegged almost entirely on ``battle lines'' and arms ``build-up'' they knew they had already lost the war.

Liberal opinion is under siege with those not hawkish enough being denounced as ``apologists for terror'' or the ``loony Left''. Mr. Bush's either-you-are-with-us-or-against-us edict is being replayed with a vengeance, particularly in the tabloid press. The Muslim community has blamed sections of the media for the anti-Islamic backlash and the BBC embarrassed its admirers by publicly apologising for a programme because it was perceived as ``anti-U.S.'' by some people. Saner voices in The Times and The Guardian have been drowned in a chorus of jingoism which is to be read and heard, to be believed.

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