What a difference 4 years makes...

The Sun's editorial the day after the collapse of the court martial against six of the men accused of being involved in the abuse of Baha Mousa:

COMMON sense prevailed when two British soldiers were cleared of abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Major Michael Peebles and Warrant Officer Mark Davies served with courage and bravery in the most difficult conditions.

This ludicrous show trial, which has already seen four other soldiers cleared on the judge’s orders, has been a waste of time and money.

These men risked their lives in Iraq but were repaid by being hung out to dry.

Every aspect of investigating so-called crimes within the military needs to be re-examined.

Our servicemen and women deserve nothing less.

Today's Sun editorial following Sir William Gage's report into Baha Mousa's death:

NOTHING can excuse the savagery that led to the death of an innocent Iraqi prisoner at the hands of British squaddies.

As David Cameron says, it was shocking and appalling. And it must never happen again.

There are vital lessons for the Army over the scandal of hotel worker Baha Mousa, who died of 93 injuries inflicted by brutal captors in a detention centre.

The Sun's security expert, Andy McNab, points out that squaddies on active service are pumped up and highly aggressive. In war, their lives depend on it.

Responsibility for channelling that aggression, and enforcing rules on treating prisoners, falls to senior commanders and top brass at the Defence Ministry.

Yesterday's public inquiry report condemned a shameful failure of leadership. It also hit out at the conspiracy of silence over the killing of Mr Mousa.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox must act decisively with sackings — although he is right to insist that firm interrogation techniques remain an option.

Most Service personnel are fine men and women doing a tough job.

Yesterday the latest soldier to die in Afghanistan was brought home, a tragic reminder of the perils our brave troops face daily.

A handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole Army.

Whatever happened to common sense? And perhaps the Sun can also elaborate on whom outside the military contributed to the "conspiracy of silence" following the "savage" treatment meted out to Baha Mousa. After all, a handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole of the British media.

How to take advantage of a parliamentary misunderstanding.

We all know how dearly the Sun loves "Our Boys", even if the feeling is not necessarily mutual. It's therefore hardly surprising that it's instantly leapt to their defence, having apparently been accused by Labour MP Paul Flynn of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". The problem is that almost every single thing about the report by Tom Newton Dunn in which the claim is made, and the leader comment which accompanies it, is wrong.

WIKILEAKS and a Labour MP were accused of giving the Taliban "a propaganda gift" yesterday by spreading wild smears about Our Boys.

Foreign Secretary William Hague mounted a passionate defence of troops in southern Afghanistan after reports were leaked to the website saying British soldiers had shot at civilians 21 times in four years.

Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, after a Guardian Freedom of Information request based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable than the second hand one which the US recorded?

The MoD said on each occasion the troops were under grave threat of suicide attack or vehicles being driven at them had failed to stop.

Despite this, anti-war Labour MP Paul Flynn jumped on the statistic to brand the incidents "atrocities".

Mr Hague hit back: "I condemn the unauthorised release of information which can endanger our forces and give one-sided propaganda - a propaganda gift, for insurgents."

He also hailed British troops, saying: "They are the finest any nation could hope to have."

Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:

The Labour MP Paul Flynn called for an inquiry into the conduct of the units in what he said could be "atrocities in the name of the British people". "Truth has a cleansing function," he added.

Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.

It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:

What is the Foreign Secretary's assessment of last weekend's WikiLeaks reports, which made reference to 21 incidents in Afghanistan involving British troops?

Hague's answer was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes comes from the statement, and so has been taken entirely out of context.

Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.

Here's the paper's leader:

AS if facing death from the Taliban wasn't enough, our Forces have to face snipers back home.

Labour MP Paul Flynn accuses Our Boys of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people".

His basis for this slur? Irresponsible and unsubstantiated internet leaks claiming British troops fired on Afghan civilians.

The Defence Ministry insists this would only ever have happened in self-defence when our soldiers came under threat of suicide attack.

Our troops have spent nine years doing their best for Afghan civilians, laying down their lives for them.

As Foreign Secretary William Hague says, these smears are a Taliban propaganda gift.

Ed Miliband should order Flynn to apologise.

The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.

P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth Abu Izzadeen's remarks on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:

His every word was cheered by a flock including sidekick Anjem Choudary and jailed hate cleric Abu Hamza.

Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release, unsurprisingly.

Are there no depths to which these people will stoop?

Some stories just subliminally scream "bollocks" from the opening word. Today's Sun "exclusive", claiming that the Taliban have now sank to the depths of making "HIV bombs", by putting needles used for injecting heroin into their improvised explosive devices already seems unlikely. Then it reveals the source for this literal bombshell:

The tactic, used in the Afghan badlands of Helmand, was exposed by Tory MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer.

Senior backbencher Mr Mercer said yesterday: "Are there no depths to which these people will stoop? This is the definition of a dirty war."

Speaking of stooping to depths, this would be the same Patrick Mercer that continued to work with the discredited Glen Jenvey for 2 months after he had sold the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" story to the paper, a report which he had entirely concocted himself after posting on the Ummah.com web forum. Mercer gave credibility to Jenvey's "investigations" by helping him make contact with various tabloid newspapers, many of which it should be doubted were anything approaching accurate. When Mercer has been involved in such dubious actions in the past, that on its own should put newspapers on alert as to how reliable such completely unverifiable claims are. That it also involves much the same tall tales that Jenvey pushed ought to be another red line, but after all, it is the Sun we're talking about here.

Regardless of its veracity, the story has now been churned all over the globe and is the paper's second most read page, a position usually held by either sport or something involving sex. Perhaps those paywalls aren't the best idea after all? Shame you have to print such fabulous nonsense to get any such attention.

Update: Those more diligent, less dismissive and with more time than myself looked rather further into this, including this parish's own Richard Bartholomew, Tabloid Watch, but most crucially Jeff Schogol, who asked Patrick Mercer, the ISAF in Afghanistan and the Joint IED Defeat Organization for more details.

As could have been expected, Mercer's words, however the Sun got hold of the story, had been rather sexed up. Talking to Stars and Stripes he said it wasn't even a weapon as such, with the needles and razor blades most likely put in position around "dummy" devices. This was naturally translated by Tom Newton Dunn into "if the bomb goes off, the needles become deadly flying shrapnel". Mercer learned about these "HIV bombs" from bomb disposal technicians training to go to Afghanistan, not from those actually in the field, and while he didn't ask whether the Taliban had actually used such devices, he "got the impression" they were.

Predictably, the ISAF themselves had heard absolutely nothing about any such bombs, not even the dummy devices Mercer had thought were being used. "No reports, no intel, nothing" is a fairly good summary. Likewise, the Joint IED Defeat Organisation had no confirmed reports, but said it wasn't unusual for the Taliban to use "anti-tamper" devices, which are most likely not even closely related to used hypodermic needles.

Worth noting is that the quote from Deborah Jack at the end of the Sun's piece, making clear that catching HIV from a disposed needle is about as likely as the Sun not embellishing a story, was added after I first made this post, presumably for the print edition and most likely by a sub-editor who felt it needed a little balance. As the Rumor Doctor has it, "more like an enemy propaganda campaign than a widespread new tactic", and if there's one thing the Sun has always been good at, it's running propaganda campaigns.

Rolling back the lies.

Tabloid Watch has the lowdown on a story which I'm sorry to say we missed:

On 29 October, The Sun ran a story with the headline Asda till snub for Hope for Heroes mum. It claimed:

Mum-of-three Beth Hoyle claims an Asda till worker refused to serve her because she was wearing a wristband backing injured troops.

Beth says the checkout lad told her the band for Help for Heroes - aided by The Sun - meant she supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And when she complained to a supervisor, he BACKED the Asian youth, saying he was entitled to his view.

Beth, 40, who has two brothers in the services, said the checkout worker told her he didn't want to serve her because of "what she was wearing."

Asda responded by apologising to the mother (based on the allegations) and launched an investigation.

Two weeks later, Asda issued the following statement:

We’ve come to the end of our investigation at Asda Rochdale and can’t find any truth in the allegation that one of our colleagues refused to serve a customer for wearing a Help for Heroes wristband.

Our regional operations manager Paul Rowland said: “We’ve completed our investigation and it’s clear this exchange never happened. We’ve interviewed over 400 colleagues in the store, examined over three days worth of CCTV footage and talked to other customers and we can find absolutely no evidence that a colleague said what was alleged.”

Of course, they would say that, wouldn't they? But as the spokesman quoted in the Sun article says Asda sell the Help for Heroes wristbands and badges in store, the story never made much sense.

They continued:

“We are disappointed and angry that right-wing groups are using this mythical incident to whip up racial hatred,” said Paul. “Thankfully the people of Rochdale will see straight through that. We remain big supporters of the work our troops do serving our country.”

Some of the comments on the ASDA statement suggest the rumour started on right-wing Facebook groups. If you Google 'Beth Hoyle and Asda' the first result is the 'Exposing Islam' blog. The National Front comes up a bit later. It's very hard to find the results of the Asda investigation.

But using mythical incidents to whip up hatred? Surely the Sun wouldn't do such a thing?

Would they?

(hat-tip to Paul Bryant)

Thatcher, sick pics, some contempt and 40 years as the Eye sees it.

Wednesday. The easiest day of the fortnight for the Media Watch editor of this place.

This fortnight, after a bit of a drought recently, Private Eye has served up a couple of juicey bits.

First of all shocking pictures...



This being the story in question.

The next is an example of the Sun showing contempt for the Contempt of Court Act 1981...



...with a nice little dig at the Met Commissioner, too.

PE couldn't let 40 years of the sun go by without it's own little corner, either...



That last headline is a cracker, isn't it? There was an apology, in the only place it should've been for headline as wrong in every way as 'Straight sex cannot give you AIDS - Official': page 28. /sarcasm

Adam Macqueen, in 2006, writes about a similarly scarey, and dangerous, headline "Killer Plagues", about AIDS & HIV riddled Bulgarians and Hungarians invading Britian.

And to finish with, something a little lighter...

Even when they're being nice...

The Sun today carried a story about the five British soldiers. There's nothing controversial about it. It just an article about the soldiers and some of the relatives that have to pick up the pieces after losing a loved one.

But even when The Sun is being nice and sensitive it still can't help but have a little dig.

One of the soldiers, Warrant Officer Darren Chant, was expecting to become a father again with his wife Nausheen.

As you could guess, Nausheen is not a typical British name. Nausheen, according the article, is a non-practising Muslim. I do not know her and non-practising means different things to different people, but looking at the pictures published in the paper of her marriage, a white Christian wedding, it looks like she is not a Muslim at all. Nausheen's parents may be, but that doesn't mean she is.

And here's the bit that's got me. In the article there is only one reference to Nausheen being a Muslim. It is referred to in a casual way. In a way that newspapers refer to people's jobs, "John, a carpenter from Wilsdon...". That isn't a problem, especially in this type of story. It adds a bit of background, helps you to know the people in it, to empathise with them (although it doesn't mention anyone else's religion, practising or otherwise).

The point is Nausheen's religion is such a small part of the story, it's inconsequential.

So why the headline on the front page of the print edition and the trail on the website of...





Why add the word 'Muslim'? The fact that Nausheen is a Muslim, however dedicated, is not central to the article, it is irrelevant. The Sun doesn't add other peoples religion to headlines or stories when it has no bearing on it, so why in this case? Isn't this type of thing normally reserved for derogatory use?

I am not saying the Sun can't mention peoples ethnicity or religion, as I said earlier, it's bit of background, a bit of colour in the picture. To stick it in the headline when it has no relevance at all, especially with the Suns' previous with Muslims, it's well, maybe they just stuck it in with out thinking, eh?

Get your war on.

All of a day later, and up pops Gordon in Afghanistan with the promise of more troops. Coincidence? Probably, as it's somewhat doubtful, even considering New Labour's obsession with the Sun, that yesterday's paper will have persuaded Brown and his advisers to immediately order a trip to the badlands of Helmand. No, but there might have been something much more conspiratorial at work here: I remember Peter Oborne on Newswipe mentioning that the Sun launched a campaign against asylum seekers back in 2003 with the full cooperation of Downing Street, with David Blunkett's interview with the paper sewn up in advance, where he'd agree with the paper's attacks on one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Is the same thing at work here? Who knows?

Don't they know there's a bloody war on? Err, yes, I think they do.

Either Rebekah Wade is going out with a bang or Dominic Mohan is intent on being seen immediately as a "serious" editor for these serious times. Today's Sun splash, and an extra long editorial with short comment pieces from various individuals alongside it, all ask the same interminable question: "Don't they know there's a bloody war on?"

My guess is that they do (they being the politicians) and that you (us) also do. It's just that the war in Afghanistan is one which has little overall consequence for anyone outside of the military. We have relatively few troops in the country (around the 10,000) mark, they're all there because they want to be, which makes a major difference to wars where conscription is used, and their presence has no real tangible effects on us back home whatsoever, except for the families of those who return either dead or injured, not to mention mentally scarred. You can argue that this shouldn't be the case, that there should be more than simple passive support for what the soldiers are out there doing, even if this doesn't extend to political support, but what exactly does the Sun expect? For the country to be put on a war footing? For the prime minister to take personal control? It seems they do: they want him to "take charge and take responsibility for the war", and if he doesn't he should be replaced by someone who will. Has it not perhaps occurred to the Sun that the very last person who should be in charge of the conduct of a war is an unqualified politician? Or do they mean something different when they say take charge and take responsibility?

This point matters because the paper is not only not comparing like with like, it seems a little hazy on history as well, as this passage from the editorial makes plain:

Mr Brown has taken the country to war but is ducking responsibility for the conduct of it. The tradition of our country is that in wartime, the Prime Minister takes charge.

Lloyd George led us in World War One and Winston Churchill in World War Two.

Margaret Thatcher led from the front in the triumphant Falklands War in 1982.

John Major took charge in the first Gulf War of 1991. Tony Blair assumed full responsibility when we invaded Iraq to topple Saddam. And he did the same over the liberation of Kosovo.

Except Gordon Brown hasn't taken the country into Afghanistan; Tony Blair did, in 2001. We've been there ever since. Brown as chancellor provided the funds for the war, it's quite true, but was not personally responsible for taking us there. He also wasn't prime minister when we entered Helmand in 2006: the defence secretary then was John Reid, who famously said he hoped that we would leave without firing a single shot. Then there's the fact that we're there in the country, not just on our own, but as part of the ISAF NATO coalition. Additionally, if we're going to split hairs, Winston Churchill didn't lead us into WW2; Neville Chamberlain did. The war in Afghanistan is also not, in any meaningful sense, a war with specific aims like all of those the Sun lists. It's far more comparable to what we were doing in Iraq from the fall of Saddam up until our exit this year: peacekeeping, reconstruction and providing security. Missions, like Operation Panther's Claw, which had the specific aim of clearing out Taliban so that people could vote in the presidential election, have been few and far between. As also argued above, we are quite clearly not in "wartime".

It's perhaps instructive that some of yesterday's front pages screamed that up to 10 British soldiers had died so that a whole 150 people could vote. The message from that was unequivocal: what's the point? The Sun quite clearly believes there is a point, as it has argued in the past, but it certainly isn't suggesting what it is in this editorial. It seems intent instead on kicking people before they've even had a chance:

There is an air of unreality in the country. While Our Boys are dying, a fool who is out of his depth and with little experience is in charge of defence.

...

Bob Ainsworth is an appalling appointment as Defence Secretary, yet he's in charge of the war. General Lord Guthrie, the hugely-respected former defence staff chief, makes devastating criticisms of Ainsworth's shambolic Ministry of Defence.

Is Ainsworth a fool? I doubt it, and at least he was previously a defence minister, unlike some of the other recent secretaries which were put in place and which the likes of the Sun approved of a lot more. It's also hardly fair to blame Ainsworth for the problems at the Ministry of Defence when he's only been in charge for getting on for two months.

Guthrie is most likely integral to working out the Sun's real position. Guthrie was one of the founders of the United Kingdom National Defence Association, an organisation which pushes for a return to the levels of cold war defence spending, a ludicrous position when we face a threat that couldn't be more different to that posed by the Soviets. As also could be expected, Guthrie has interests in pushing for an increase in defence spending: according to the House of Lords register of members' interests, Guthrie is a non-parliamentary consultant to BioDefense Corporation, whose mission is to "play a key role in homeland security and the mitigation of bioterrorism", while also non-executive director of Colt Defense LLC, which supplies the American military with weapons.

As could be expected, the equipment provided, or lack of it, gets it in the neck, especially the lack of protective vehicles. Yet the Americans, who do have such vehicles, have experienced 45 casualties so far this month in the country. Jock Stirrup, the current armed forces' chief of defence staff, writing in today's Guardian has a slightly different take:

Equipment is a subject that has generated much debate, some of it well informed, some of it not. Our equipment is good and improving; commanders speak of it very highly. But the enemy adapt their tactics and techniques to counter our capabilities, so what is "the right equipment" in a campaign changes, and often very quickly.

The Sun isn't willing to acknowledge such challenges or nuances, and just blames the MoD entirely.

It comes to down three immediate steps which the paper demands, which attempt to be reasonable but which are in fact anything but:

First, Mr Brown must take personal charge of the war in Afghanistan and tell the country clearly where we stand.

Second, he must sack Bob Ainsworth and appoint a competent Defence Secretary who will work with the military, not against them.

Third, he must make available whatever money it takes to supply the equipment urgently needed on the ground.

The first step is far enough on the second point, not so much on the former as already discussed. The fact is though that there is no convincing argument for our presence in Afghanistan, hence the fallacious argument (which the Sun supports) that what the troops are doing in Afghanistan is protecting British lives on British streets. The reason why the government is obtuse is because it realises this, however inappropriate that is. The best argument that can be made, whether you agree or disagree, is in Jock Stirrup's piece above. Sacking Bob Ainsworth will solve precisely nothing, especially when the Sun doesn't even attempt to suggest someone who should replace him, just as there is no evidence whatsoever that Ainsworth is "working against them". Lastly, just where does the Sun expect the government to get "whatever money it takes" without raising taxes (which it loathes), borrowing yet more (equally) or cutting services (which?)? In any event, helicopters and armoured vehicles cannot suddenly be magicked out of thin air; they take time to procure.

The Sun, as always, wants things done yesterday, and wants more to be done with less. It's trapped in the fatal idea that we are still a world power when we are not, and demands the sort of military spending that a world power would require. We are instead an island nation that requires defence, but not of the kind which the likes of Guthrie support. Gordon Brown can be criticised quite rightly over many things, including the current lack of dedication and explanation vis-a-vis Afghanistan, but the problems can be traced back to both Tony Blair and John Reid, who had the main hand in the calamity currently occurring in the country. The real way to defend the forces is to call for them to be brought home, and for a realistic defence policy which accepts that the main threat comes not from Afghanistan, but in fact from its neighbour, Pakistan. Undoubtedly though, whoever the editor of the Sun, when the paper barks, politicians listen, and Brown and Ainsworth will be surely mulling over what their response will be.

The "chain of terror" breaks.

It probably says something about the mounting cynicism concerning the war in Afghanistan that even the Sun, by far the most ardent supporter of our presence in Helmand province, has been moved to commission a justificatory article on the "chain of terror". As you might have expected though, to call the arguments made piss poor, utterly confused and easy to rebut would be an understatement.

To begin with, Oliver Harvey seems to be confused exactly where it is and who it is we're at war with. It is Afghanistan or Pakistan? Is it the Taliban or is it the Pakistani Taliban, who for the most part are entirely separate? This extends to Harvey's geographical knowledge: he claims that Malakand is near to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border when it is in fact quite some distance from it. This is an attempt to link Mohammad Sidique Khan and Omar Khyam to the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban; the problem here is that there is no link. Khan and Khyam, if trained by any particular grouping, were most likely trained by individuals with links to al-Qaida. Khan might well have left for Pakistan with the intention of fighting in Afghanistan; he left behind a video for his daughter which made clear he wasn't expecting to return. The fact that he did rather undermines any links he had with the Taliban, who are fighting only in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than having worldwide ambitions.

Next we have just the word of Gordon Brown and Barack Obama to convince us that somehow British troops in Afghanistan do make us safer:

Gordon Brown made his remarks last week as the war in Afghanistan entered a particularly grim phase, with 17 British soldiers killed already this month.

The PM argued the sacrifice made by our troops - 186 have died since operations began in Afghanistan - was vital and that to stop fighting the Taliban would make the UK "less safe".

Justifying the UK military presence in Helmand, he said: "It comes back to terrorism on the streets of Britain.

"There is a chain of terror that links what's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.

"If we were to allow the Taliban to be back in power in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda then to have the freedom of manoeuvre it had before 2001, we would be less safe as a country."

US President Barack Obama agreed, insisting: "The mission in Afghanistan is one that the Europeans have as much, if not more, of a stake in than we do.

"The likelihood of a terrorist attack in London is at least as high, if not higher, than it is in the United States."

Government officials state around three quarters of the most advanced plots monitored by MI5 have Pakistani links.

They said the security service is aware of around 30 serious plots at any given moment, suggesting that at least 21 of them are tied to Pakistani groups.

Again, we're meant to take it that Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable. Yet we have no military presence in Pakistan, and nor does the United States. The only thing that comes closest to it is the incessant drone strikes on alleged high profile militant targets. Afghanistan and Pakistan might be connected, but our military offensive is not, despite the recent AfPak change in emphasis by the Americans. The fact remains the al-Qaida doesn't need the freedom of manoeuvre it had in Afghanistan up to October 2001, both because it has something approaching that freedom in Pakistan and because its ideology has gone global, just as it hoped it would. 9/11 was mostly planned in Germany, having been first proposed years before by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, just as 7/7 was mostly planned in this country. While attending a training camp is still integral to those who go on to become terrorists, most information can now be found and accessed through the internet. Furthermore, the fact that so many of these plots have roots in Pakistan is not always to do with how they can be linked back to the Taliban or al-Qaida there, but simply because so many of the Muslims in this country originate from Pakistan and have support or themselves support relatives back there.

And Afghanistan provides the bulk of the heroin on Britain's streets - with the profits funding Taliban guerrillas.

A staggering 93 per cent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan - two thirds of it from Helmand, where British troops are fighting and dying.

Taliban chiefs often "tax" narcotics gangs ten per cent for providing security.

Afghan police chief Lt Col Abdul Qader Zaheer, 45, told me last year: "If it wasn't for heroin there wouldn't be a war here. It pays for Taliban guns."

Of course, this omits the fact that the Taliban themselves first almost eradicated the poppy crop. They only turned to it once they needed to. It also fails to acknowledge that solutions to the poppy crop, such as buying it to be turned into medicines have been ignored or rejected. That the Sun also objects to even the most timid moves towards liberalisation of the drug laws also means that the opportunities that legislation offers are completely off the table. Heroin itself though has nothing to do with our presence in Helmand - we're not fighting a war against drugs in Afghanistan - this is just another distraction.

The tentacles of jihad linking Britain and Afghanistan begin on the Helmand frontline.

One dead Taliban fighter was found with an Aston Villa tattoo. The discovery suggested the insurgent was from the UK and followed news that RAF radio spies picked up Brummie accents while listening in on Taliban "chatter" over the airwaves.

These UK-born fighters arrive through the mountainous and sieve-like border from Pakistan - the same desolate, lawless region where Khyam and Khan received their bomb-making masterclass.

We've dealt with these same, unconfirmed and impossible to verify claims before. There probably are some Brits fighting in Afghanistan, but if there weren't fighting there, they probably would be somewhere else. In a way, this actually gives some credence to the claim that we're safer due to our presence in Afghanistan - fight those jihadists who want to do battle with their own countrymen outside the actual country rather than here. This isn't though the government's case - their case is that through defeating the Taliban and preventing al-Qaida from returning they're making us safer, which was dealt with somewhat above.

It is believed Khan filmed his "martyrdom" video in Pakistan. In it, he glares at the camera with his hatred of the West clearly evident and declares icily: "We are at war and I am a soldier."

Pakistan is the next link in the chain of terror. British jihadis receive not only weapons training there but are also further radicalised by preachers of hate at madrassas or religious schools.

Khan's fellow 7/7 murderer, Shehzad Tanweer, is said to have worshipped at Islamabad's notorious Red Mosque.

This is more nonsense - the idea that jihadists go to Pakistan to be "further radicalised" is specious. They wouldn't have gone in the first place if they weren't already somewhat committed to the cause. If anything, this further undermines the case for presence in Afghanistan: if all the radicalisation, training and hatred is going on in Pakistan, why are we in Helmand province? How does being there make us safer than stopping what goes on in Pakistan would?

We're then treated to some boilerplate rabble-rousing from a cleric whom Harvey had the privilege to meet:

The Islamist radicals in Afghanistan and Pakistan make no effort to disguise their aim to introduce Sharia law to Britain. In the dusty Pakistani town of Kahuta, a cleric was happy to tell me last year of his desire to bring beheadings and stonings to our shores.

Imam Qari Hifzur Rehamn, 60 said of Britain: "Non-believers must be converted to Islam. Morals in your society, with women wearing revealing clothes, have gone wrong.

"We want Islamic law for all Pakistan and then the world.

"We would like to do this by preaching. But if not then we would use force."

The Imam of the town's religious school, where kids as young as nine are taught jihad or holy war, added: "Adulterers should be buried in earth to the waist and stoned to death.

"Thieves should have their hands cut off. Women should remain indoors and films and pop music should be banned.

"Homosexuals must be killed - it's the only way to stop them spreading. It should be by beheading or stoning, which the general public can do."

Again, this fails to even begin to back up the case for our presence in Afghanistan. If Harvey had met this imam in that country perhaps he might have a point - but he didn't. The idea that those taught similar things are suddenly going to be any sort of threat to this country except as an irritant is ludicrous - if they can't even begin to impose their beliefs on Pakistan, how are they meant to do it in a country thousands of miles away?

But the US-led coalition has vowed to stop the radicals from governing the desperately poor nation again and fermenting an ideology of holy war against the West.

The final link in the jihadi chain is a return to Britain.

Khan slipped back into the UK in February 2005. Just five months later he detonated his rucksack bomb at Edgware Road Tube station, murdering six people.

On the sun-baked plains and river valleys of Helmand today, our forces - some just 18 - are locked in deadly combat with a resilient Taliban army.

The prize in this bloody war, and the legacy for those brave soldiers who have returned here to heroes' funerals, is to snap the chain of terror for good.

Except there is no such thing as a Taliban "army", just as there is no such thing as one Taliban. This so-called "chain of terror" cannot be snapped by an army based in just one province, with just less than 10,000 soldiers on the ground, in a country which has been at war for almost 30 years. It would require an army at least 10 times that size to have even the slightest chance of controlling the whole of Afghanistan, let alone Pakistan, which this piece invokes repeatedly. The Soviets had over 100,000 units on the ground post-1980 and they couldn't manage it. How can such a fragmented coalition as Nato currently is even begin to?

The article doesn't even begin to consider any alternatives, let alone any counter-arguments. It can be argued that our very presence in Afghanistan in fact makes us less safe: it makes us a target for reprisals whereas if we were not involved we would not be. 9/11 and 7/7 did not occur in vacuums; they did not happen simply because "they hate us". The chain of terror would have breaks in it if we did not involve ourselves in battles in which we have no dog in. It would not completely remove the threat, but it would decrease it exponentially. That the Sun doesn't even start to imagine the opposing side even exists speaks volumes.

The Sun: supporting Our Boys by stealing their footage!

Another dismal leader in the Sun today, supporting the unwinnable war in Afghanistan to the hilt by claiming that leaving the country to the Taliban will obviously mean that the bombs killing "Our Boys" out there will quickly be coming here

More interesting though is a video clip which the Sun are predictably claiming as an exclusive, showing British troops in action near the Inkerman base in Helmand province and which they've slapped their logo on.

The Sun has in fact stolen the footage, as you might have expected. It was first posted on Liveleak on the 7th of July by someone called campbell. The Sun has simply cut it so that only the video and not the identifiers remain. Nice work, and doubtless whoever campbell is will be contacted so that he can paid for the paper using his video without permission.

Going off half cocked

The MOD banning page 3? What are they thinking?

Probably the same as News International, which owns the Sun, according to the Guardian's Media Monkey:

...maybe the Current Bun should be launching a similar campaign much closer to home. Sun hacks have in the past been unable to access the site at its HQ in Wapping as it is rejected by News International's strict internet firewall.

They've only banned page 3!

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Intelligence and lazy smears.

Another article I missed but which is now causing controversy was the Sun's exclusive on Wednesday concerning the arrest of an army colonel on suspicion of leaking casualty figures to Human Rights Watch. To call the story a lazy smear would be perhaps putting it too politely:

A BRITISH Colonel is alleged to have leaked highly sensitive civilian casualty figures after being befriended by a woman from a human rights group.

A senior source told The Sun that Lt Col Owen McNally started passing details to her when the pair became “close” in Afghanistan.

In case you don't get the incredibly subtle allusion being made here, the allegation appears to be that McNally handed over the true civilian casualty figures after conducting an affair with Rachel Reid, a former BBC journalist. Problem is, Reid herself completely denies it:

According to news reports, Colonel Owen McNally has been flown back to Britain, where he will reportedly be interviewed by military police. The Ministry of Defence has told media that I was the recipient of these secrets as a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Whatever the MoD has whispered into the ear of the Sun, Col McNally and I met only twice, both times in a purely professional capacity, both times at the Nato military HQ in Kabul. Both times we met to talk about civilian casualties from US and Nato air strikes.

What has happened in the last couple of days has been bewildering. I do not understand how these two meetings might have led the British government to accuse McNally of a serious crime that could lead to a hefty jail sentence, and why my government might want to see my reputation dragged through the mud, when I live in a country where a woman's reputation can mean her life. The meetings seemed unexceptional. A QC retained by Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the kind of information I received is not covered by the Official Secrets Act.

If the ministry had been seriously concerned that one of their officers was leaking information, why leak it to the media? Why was my name released to the media by the MoD, with a (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) libel that our relationship was "close"? They would know exactly what impression they were creating, and presumably decided that my reputation was expendable in order to ensure coverage of their "story".

Conor Foley provides some further background information:

A similar cloud of surrealism shrouds the charges against McNally. He was the UN mission's (Unama) focal point with ISAF and just last week made a presentation on how to improve civil-military liaison and bring greater transparency to Nato's operations. His job was to liaise with the civilian parts of the Afghan mission and he was highly respected within the international community in Kabul for his professionalism.

McNally is thought to be one of the army's most senior former non-commissioned officers. He joined the army as a private in 1977 and worked his way up through the ranks before being commissioned in 1995. The idea that he would throw away his career for a passionate fling seems extremely implausible, but his arrest does highlight a broader problem about the levels of secrecy surrounding many aspects of Nato's military strategy in Afghanistan.

In essence, McNally seems to have been doing his job. For his trouble, and for being honest and helping a true picture of the number of civilian casualties enter into the public domain, he gets arrested on trumped up charges, and the woman also only doing her job gets accused of exchanging sex for information. The newspaper chosen for this news to be leaked to is one that is completely behind the campaign in Afghanistan, and one which has no compunction in such sleazy smears being thrown around. Whether it's claiming that al-Qaida fighters caught plague, that they're raping fighters into becoming suicide bombers, or that a colonel broke the OSA in return for sex, it's just further evidence that you cannot take a single word written in the Sun seriously.

Rebekah Wade speaks to the nation.

Billed as her first major speech in six years, or rather appearance, as the Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade, is notoriously shy of the limelight, the invitation for her to deliver this year's Hugh Cudlipp lecture was a curious one. Although the press is too coy to mention it, the real reason why Wade has not defended her newspaper in person when controversy has surrounded it, instead sending out Grahan Dudman to do it, is for fear that she'd embarrass herself, as she did when she rather unfortunately told the truth to a parliamentary committee by saying that her paper paid the police for information. Then there was of course her arrest and night spent in the cells for whacking her then husband, Ross Kemp, after a night on the booze. Again, interestingly, most of the media connived to cover up her split from Kemp, with Private Eye reporting that Les Hinton had phoned round the papers pleading with them not to report on it. For an editor whom in her speech defends vigorously the right to print whatever the hell she likes about those supposedly in the public eye, this strikes as rather hypocritical behaviour.

There is perhaps though another reason why Wade has not ventured into the public gaze for the past few years, which quickly becomes apparent when you read the actual content of her speech: she has nothing of any great interest to say. You don't need to be an intellectual to edit an newspaper, and Wade is probably excellent at what she does, but an orator or a debater she is obviously not. Compared to Paul Dacre, who likewise is supposedly shy of the limelight, his speeches, which included the very same lecture a couple of years back, are furious and infuriating by equal measure. He might be completely wrong, and arrogant and insulting with it, but he can argue his point well enough. Wade however lacks the courage or self-belief to adequately cover the contradictions throughout, leaving gaping holes in her material.

She might well have been then as Roy Greenslade suggests, charming in person, but none of that comes across in the somewhat disjointed full text offered by both the Guardian and the Press Gazette. Starting on somewhat surer ground, she illustrates that those cutting costs without reinvesting the savings back into journalism itself are the ones that are losing the most sales. Unsurprisingly, the Mirror and the Daily Star are the ones that have lost the most sales over the past year. Even this though leaves out some other much needed explanatory detail: Wade doesn't mention that her own paper has reignited the vicious price war, with the paper selling for just 20p across London and the south-east. As has been noted time and again, because of Murdoch's other vast interests, he can afford to do so; his competitors simply can't, and attempting to compete is beyond stupid. Naturally, Richard Desmond has therefore slashed the cost of the Star to... 20p. Although December is always a quiet month for newspapers sales, the Sun fell below 3 million last month, just as it did in 2007. Across the board though all of the tabloids are declining, and falling at far faster rates than their broadsheets rivals and sisters. It indicates the inevitable: that as the internet increasingly takes over as the main source for the celeb tittle-tattle, scandal-mongering and populist wittering which they specialise in, the tabloids are facing the end of their business models. The broadsheets, by contrast, although still giving away their content, can survive thanks to their quality and reader dedication, which simply isn't there among the red-tops and middle-market.

Wade's rallying cry then, that it will be "the quality of our journalism [that] makes or breaks our industry, not the recession", is one of those statements that makes you wonder if she really knows what she's saying. Just the recent Glen Jenvey incident, when the paper splashed on a complete untrue concocted story which accused completely innocent Muslims of being extremists, shows how much it cares about accuracy. It's no surprise to learn that a new poll found that only 19% of those questioned in this country had trust in newspapers. This is a direct consequence of the tabloids' often irresponsible and downright untrue journalism, which unfairly infects opinion of other newspapers and broadcasters, yet still editors like Dacre and Wade defend their "quality" despite its effects.

Wade's second theme, campaigning journalism, offers us her insight into both the recent Baby P affair and the more notorious "naming and shaming" of paedophiles she directed while editor of the News of the World, but first she mentions the paper's continuing support for the Help for Heroes charity, including her own trip to a base in Helmand. She describes a warm welcome and how everyone was wearing the wristbands, but this jars somewhat with the far more cynical views of the newspaper on the Army Reserve Rumour Service message board in response to the paper's Military Awards, which Wade also mentions, and which readers themselves also seemed less than overwhelmed with. She takes credit for the increasing support for the army and turnout at parades, without providing any evidence whatsoever that it was the Sun "wot did it". Similarly, while she calls for more reporting of the war in Afghanistan, she doesn't mention that her paper's own coverage of it never for so much of a second doubts that it's for a good cause or that the battle is being won. Whenever the topic is discussed in the paper's leader column, it inevitably turns to the argument that fighting the Taliban makes us safer, when again there is evidence to suggest the opposite is the case. Blind loyalty is all that it has to offer, when constructive criticism is always the best policy.

Moving on to Sarah's law, what becomes clear is Wade's utter refusal to take responsibility, both for her own actions, and also for the actions of those who read her newspaper and decide to take the law into their own hands. Illuminating firstly is that it came about after she arrived unannounced on Sara Payne's doorstep; not apparently concerned about whether either she or her husband were in a fit state to be interviewed, or to set in motion what became a crusade which if implemented would most likely have the opposite effect to that which is intended, Wade immediately had her witch-hunt. Her own contempt for the truth is also apparent when she castigates the other media for its reporting of what happened on one Portsmouth estate:

Parts of the media went on the attack with a blatant disregard for the facts of the campaign or more importantly their readers’ opinions on the matter.

After we published the first list, a group of mothers from an impoverished housing estate in Portsmouth took to the streets to protest. The BBC described them as ‘an angry lynch mob’.

What the BBC did not report was that the mothers had just discovered that Victor Burnett, a paedophile with 14 convictions for raping and abusing young boys between the ages of four and nine, had been rehoused amongst them unmonitored by the authorities.

Totally unaware of his background, the residents had complained for years about Burnett’s inappropriate behaviour towards their children but their voices, until then, had remained unheard.

How else should the media have described protests such as these, as reported by the Telegraph:

The torch paper was lit by the naming of Victor Burnett, a convicted serial child abuser, in the News of the World: he was a resident of Paulsgrove and was hounded from his home by a chanting mob. Events moved out of control: the rest of Britain looked on in horror and fascination as windows were smashed, cars burned, and angelic, banner-waving five-year-olds happily chanted words that sounded ugly falling from childish mouths. "Sex case, sex case. Hang 'em, hang 'em, hang 'em." Five families were moved from the estate: the police said that none had links with sex offences.

There was no evidence that Burnett had re-offended while on Paulsgrove, but at least he was correctly identified: others had their houses burgled, windows smashed and their cars set on fire. Wade calls the "naming and shaming" her responsibility, which it was. She however hides behind the readers themselves, critical of how others disregarded "readers' opinions", as if readers' opinions are always unimpeachable or always right. As Nick Davies pointed out in Flat Earth News, one of the rules of production is giving the readers what they want, but what you think the readers want is not always the same thing. The key is that it's cheap, while challenging orthodoxy is expensive and unpredictable.

That Wade has no interest in the ultimate consequences of her own actions could not be more illustrated by the end result of the paper's Baby P campaign. Here's how she describes it:

Campaigns provide a unique connection to the public especially when the subject matter is of a serious nature.For me, nothing can illustrate this connection better than our recent Baby P campaign.

The public outcry was deafening. And we began our fight for justice with a determination to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for Baby P’s brutal death.

We delivered 1.5 million signatures to Downing Street and the collective power worked.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls was forced to use emergency legislation to ensure that those responsible were held to account. We received many many thousands of letters at The Sun about our Baby P coverage.

I’d like to read you one: ‘I have never been a huge fan of The Sun, however I thank you for the coverage of Baby P. I am so grateful for the campaign. This is not a modern day witch-hunt but a petition for justice. Please, please do not relent.'

In contrast, I’d like to quote from an article in... The Guardian.

“Full of fury and repellent hysteria, but isn’t that part of the game? This is less about the creation of public emotion and more about its manipulation."

This knee-jerk tabloid kicking reaction is just dull.

But total disregard and respect for public opinion never ceases to amaze me.

They demanded accountability.

And as a result of the campaign, some, just some, of those responsible were removed from office without compensation.

Or as this Sun reader wrote: ‘The tabloid press, which the arty-farty press like to look down on so much, has shown that it prides morality over political correctness.’

Again, there's the lack of evidence that Shoesmith and others wouldn't have been suspended or sacked if the Sun hadn't ran its campaign. Some sort of action was always going to be taken. Again, Wade hides behind supposed public opinion: it's what "they" want, not what she wants or what's good for Murdoch's bank balance. It's not about directing the blame onto other people because those actually responsible for Baby P's death couldn't be named and demonised themselves because the cogs of justice are still whirring in connected cases, it's about so-called justice, or even morality. The result? A new boss has been installed in Haringey, on double what Sharon Shoesmith was earning, while the borough is now so desperate for social workers that the head of the department made an appeal across London for some to be lent him. Children less safe, those who worked on the case who were already likely distraught had their lives ruined, and now the service, what's left of it, costs more. A more ringing endorsement of a Sun justice campaign could hardly be imagined, and yet still Wade feels fit to quote a reader who invokes morality. This so-called morality was presumably what lead the comment sections on the Sun's articles to be shut down, where previously already suicidal social workers had been encouraged to kill themselves. The only more immoral paper in this country is the Daily Mail.

Filled with such chutzpah, it's little wonder that Wade then goes on to make an even more outrageous statement, this time involving press freedom:

This country is full of regulators, lawyers and politicians eager to frame and implement legislation that would constrain freedoms hard won over centuries.

We are already losing those freedoms. Privacy legislation is being created by the drip, drip of case law in the High Court without any reference to parliament.

This from the editor of an newspaper which as the Heresiarch has already pointed out, has never so much as raised its voice once against this government's incessant attacks on civil liberties. In fact, on nearly every occasion it's supported them, whether it be ID cards, detention without trial or its constant bugbear, the Human Rights Act, which it opposed while the government introduced it. She's also completely wrong: parliament passed the HRA, which now so apparently threatens the tabloids' and their dying business model by potentially restricting the scandals they can report. This is also an issue on which public opinion is not necessarily on their side: few cared about Max Mosley, or even knew who he was until the News of the World exposed him while blackmailing the women who spanked him. The HRA doesn't affect real scandal, like the already monikered "Erminegate", which is why no one other than the tabloids and their editors care, and why the Guardian was completely right to print Mosley's own views on press freedom, which she criticises, no doubt intending to be humourous, as "self-flagellation". When she talks about quality, a old man being spanked by prostitutes is the sort of story she means.

Having regaled stories about how much the Sun listens to its readers, she concludes with a few questions which can be happily answered:

We need to ask ourselves: Can we unite to fight against a privacy law that has no place in a democracy?

Obviously not, as firstly there isn't one, isn't going to be one, and even if there was, it wouldn't be supported when it would only cover sex scandals involving celebrities. Next!

Can we agree that self-regulation is the best way to deal with the occasional excesses of a free press?

No, not when the regulator is completely toothless and cannot impose financial sanctions or front page apologies on newspapers when the "excesses" are serious enough, as they often are.

Can we have a press that has the courage and commitment to listen to and fight for its readers?

Not when no thought is put into whether the consequences of that courage and commitment will actually result in a positive outcome.

Can we survive this economic climate if we keep investment in journalism at the heart of what we do?

Not if what you call journalism is whatever's on the front page of tomorrow's Sun (Jade Goody and a footballer being interviewed about a rape).

Supporting our boys

Defence of the Realm has taken apart a bit of reporting by the defence editor Tom Newton-Dunn.

Political editor George Pascoe-Watson, of The Sun needs to talk urgently to the paper’s defence editor (or vice versa).

On 11 March of this year – to the evident approval of the newspaper, GP-W announced a "£40m kit boost for our heroes", telling us in an "exclusive" report that British soldiers in Afghanistan were to get "72 new Mad Max-style troop carriers in tomorrow's Budget".

Although the story had a picture of the early version (unarmoured) - with photoshopped grenade launcher - amd acaption, "Tough ... Supacat armoured vehicle", it seems that defence "editor" Tom Newton Dunn (don't they have reporters anymore?) does not agree.

Preferring instead a vehicle that cools the occupants using a fan and some rubber hose up the trousers.

Millie Tant.

On Friday we noted that the Sun's own readers didn't take too kindly to the idea that the population of Merthyr Tydfil were scroungers, based on the fact that just one person applied for a cleaning job advertised by the Sun which was offering a wage below that of the money a person on the dole would receive.

Yesterday there was a similar response to the sudden emergence of the Sun-sponsored military awards, which the paper has already taken to calling the "Millies". The majority of the comments on the article which accompanied the launch, one by none other than Prince Charles, were far from complimentary:

"looks tacky.. it's like some sort of MTV award"

"Our Forces are wonderful and I'm proud of them. This award thing is far too tacky for them, and reeks of self-promotion.I award it a golden raspberry."

"A trashy tacky idea that lacks any taste what so ever!"

"Terrible idea. And highly cheesy. Thanks but no thanks, a pay rise would be a better award"

"Words fail me.............Is this another project so that the Sun get more readers, a really tacky idea and one which Senior Officers in the MOD should never have agreed to. God help us."

"Bloody Awful

As a serving member of Her Majesty's Forces I think this is is utter tat - the name and the design of the award for starters.

All we want is not to be treated like something the cat coughed up when we come home and the resources to do our job. We're proud enough already because of who we serve and the uniform we wear. The real respect in our job is gained via acceptance by our mates and a job well done."

Indeed, the awards have not only gone down badly with the Sun's own readers, but with the military themselves. Over on the British Army Rumour Service forums, the response has been so vociferous that a petition has already been set-up over on the 10 Downing Street site calling for the prime minister to prevent the awards from taking place. While most of the posters have objected to the Sun sponsoring the awards on the basis that it is both tasteless and trivialises the entire concept, others have been more forthright due to their own view of the Sun's real agenda behind their backing of the armed forces:

"If it wasn't being done by the Scum, I might be in favour of it. However, the Scum is so two faced, I see it as a way for them simply to gain dirt more easily."

"Of course the Scum would win the 'two faced coverage of our boys' award. do you think Newton-Dunn would turn up to accept the award?"

"It's our own fault. While the Sun has for years made play of supporting 'our boys' when it suits them and then turning on us with any whiff of a scandal or punch up within 15 miles of a barracks - still the most common rag to find lying round the NAAFI or brew room is the good old Currant Bun.

At the risk of being banned from Liverpool like Boris Johnson and others I must say that the unequivocal response of the Scouse nation to the Scum's reporting of the Hillsborough disaster - reducing the circulation in that city from over 200,000 to less than 10,000 overnight and maintaining the boycott today - is one of the few things that endear me to the current Capital of Culture.

If you buy it, let your mates buy it, read it/look at the tits in it then you only have yourself to blame. Only a complete military boycott of the Scum would send the message and make them fuck off and stop bothering us."

In fact, the only people who seem to be supporting the idea publicly are the aforementioned Prince Charles, the Sun's own Jeremy Clarkson and the MoD themselves.

This further exposes two myths - firstly that the Sun is beloved by its own readers and that it is such an effective weathervane that it always reflects and fights for their rights; and secondly that the forces themselves regard it as their paper, as the Sun itself so often claims. Nothing in fact could be further from the truth. They too see the support the paper gives as deeply self-centred, as nothing more than something to be used for profit, whilst they jump on the army as much as anyone else when a scandal erupts.

Whether the newspaper and the MoD take such concerns on board before the "Millies" ceremony takes place remains to be seen - but everything so far suggests that it will not be the money-spinner and PR building exercise that the two sides are hoping for.