Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Have yourself a merry little illegal occupation

It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid... especially if you're in Iraq or Afghanistan, if our media are to be believed. Of course, it being Christmas, it's a perfect chance to whip up a bit of goodwill towards 'our boys' illegally occupying other countries and killing brown folk... and the news-starved media are only too happy to play along with the patriotic bullshit.

SOLDIERS ENJOY CHRISTMAS ON THE FRONT LINES IN IRAQ

says Fox, never knowingly understated. It's almost written like an order. YOU WILL ENJOY CHRISTMAS ON THE FRONT LINE! Sir, yes sir! As News Corpse point out in the picture above, there was another Xmas story in Iraq which it would have been downright unpatriotic to have reported.

The BBC have 'celebrating Christmas Helmand style' with this...

... morale here remains high.

There is a further boost to morale as a special Christmas lunch parcel is handed out to every man here, containing some welcome surprises.

Morale high? Says who? You, Caroline Wyatt, after one visit, ushered around the compound by war-machine PR goons? And what are these 'welcome surprises'? Why won't you tell us - is it censored by the MOD? (Alcohol in a Muslim country, maybe...?) Instructions to get the fuck out of someone else's country? New shiny guns? Bigger bombs? We'll never know.

This xmas push for good press coincides with a huge rise in violence from British and US Forces, represented graphically here on Lenin's Tomb.

At least Kabul-based reporter Jerome Starkey has the nuts to admit he's censored by the MOD squad as he paints a picture of jolly squaddies laughing and joking as their vastly superior firepower sees off a lone gunman.

Royal Marines won a dawn firefight with Taliban on a Christmas Day sortie yesterday - then marched back to base in Santa hats.

but

"I don't know for sure if I got him, but he didn't fire again after that,' said the father of two.

Eh? Then how do we know for sure he's Taliban? Are they the only people with guns? Are they the only Afghans who possibly might have a reason to be annoyed with another country's army occupying their land for the past six years? Did this even happen? Who told this Jerome Starkey? Did he see it for himself?

That doesn't matter though, does it. Our boys = good. Brown-faced savages = bad. Six-year war with no end in sight = going very well, thank you.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

1. Merry Christmas Eric Pickles, you dimwit
2. Convicted of nothing, murdered by an illegal airstrike – smeared by the British press
3. Merry Christmas
4. Illegal immigrants = enemies