The common world of 'defence' chiefs, 'defence' journalists and 'defence' politicians

General Sir Nick Carter, the British Army's Chief of General Staff, has been on the propaganda circuit, talking-up the 'Russian threat', promoting the UK's latest imperialist ambitions, and, of course, lobbying for more public money.

Delivered from the lofty Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Carter's speech is the latest top-brass military display of rhetorical weaponry and stealth evasion of the UK's own vast war crimes. 

The General's script is so riddled with scare memes, hyperbolic claims and cold war sophistry, it seems barely credible that any serious observer could fail to see through it.

That, alas, isn't how it works for our servile media and deferential political class.

Primed and briefed, the BBC duly reported Carter's speech below their Pravda-pitched headline:

Army chief warns British forces would struggle against Russia

Without the slightest journalistic shame, the BBC's Jonathan Beale openly approved Carter's message:

Coherent, detailed and impressive speech by @ArmyCGS @RUSI_org tonight making the case for investment in #defence. CDS in waiting ?

As noted by Media Lens:

This is how the impartial @BBCNews defence correspondent @bealejonathan responded to the UK army chief's propaganda speech on #Russia: 'Coherent, detailed and impressive'.

In a subsequent Twitter thread, Beale crudely dismissed objections that he had amplified Carter's message without any critical challenge.

Not to be outdone, the establishment-serving Guardian also gave Carter top-billing:

UK warned that Russian threat requires increased defence spending 

Chief of general staff, Sir Nick Carter, will say Britain needs to keep up with adversaries to avoid being exposed to unorthodox, hybrid warfare

And:

Russia is biggest threat to UK since cold war, says head of British army  

Gen Sir Nick Carter gives stark warning of ‘complex and capable security challenge’ for Nato  

The default 'defence' line here is often, 'we are only reporting the news'. Yet, as noted by Ian Sinclair, consider how the above Guardian headline contrasts with that of the Morning Star:

Britain's army chief accused of alarmist hyperbole over Russian threats

Why couldn't the Guardian say it likewise? It might also, quite reasonably, have added:

Gen Sir Nick Carter makes deeply questionable claims about ‘complex and capable security challenge’ for Nato

Deborah Haynes, senior defence correspondent at the Times, also trotted-out approving repetitions of Carter's speech:  

. @ArmyCGS says his motivation for speaking out is to help generate debate, to get people talking about the security of the nation @RUSI_org

And:

UK looks to keep military footprint in Germany, @ArmyCGS reveals as he spells out "clear and present danger" posed by Russia. This is not just a plea for £. It's an explanation of modern war and threats http://bit.ly/2E1Dgt8

An avid militarist and forces-supporting voice, Haynes is also a relentless purveyor of the great fake 'fake news' hysteria:

Better late than never and details still sketchy, but UK reveals plans to combat & deter fake news & other forms of information warfare deployed by states such as Russia to influence/disrupt/manipulate

There was also much party political indulgence of General Carter's fear-laden talk. Lamentably, this included the SNP's defence spokesperson, Stewart McDonald, who tweeted this message urging consideration of Carter's claims and warnings:

Worth listening to this speech by General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the General Staff. It doesn't pull any punches and should make uncomfortable viewing for the government.

McDonald affects an anti-government motivation here. But his primary nod is to Carter's 'serious defence concerns'.

Ex-SNP MP, and McDonald colleague, John Nicolson also worries that:

The UK is badly underdefended - Scotland especially so. Labour and the Tories sacrifice vital defence needs for Trident shibboleth.

Is the UK really "badly underdefended - Scotland especially so"? Here, again, we see a posturing form of 'opposition', in this case disingenuously using Trident to argue for more militarist spending to counter 'all those other external threats'.

In speaking for Scotland's main independence party, one might expect from McDonald some critical reaction to General Carter and his 'security' agenda for the British state. Seemingly not. McDonald now appears deeply smitten by such 'prestigious' figures and organisations, not least Nato, the West's leading warmongering machine, which McDonald wants to see hosted in Scotland.

McDonald's other apparent mission is to 'sort out' an "MoD in chaos". He laments 'big-ticket' spending on vanity projects like HMS Queen Elizabeth, at the 'expense' of 'conventional forces', and calls out MoD ministers for the 'shambles' over a stalled 'defence review', but offers no meaningful challenge to the military establishment at large. There's no renunciation of the political-military-corporate network behind it all. There's no argument for much wider UK disarmament. There's nothing here on the actual murderous menace of British militarism, as currently seen in Yemen. There's not a hostile word against Nato.

It's also worth noting, in these same regards, that one of McDonald's most favoured and oft-cited 'defence' correspondents is the above-mentioned Deborah Haynes.

Many of those trying to steer Labour away from their party's Blairite nightmare have been expressing deep disquiet over the imperialist-toned and pro-Israel utterances of foreign affairs spokesperson, Emily Thornberry. Serious leftists and progressives within the SNP and wider indy movement should be paying similar close attention to McDonald's own disturbing militarist and Israel-friendly positions.

The dutiful headlining, repeated claims and approving reaction to Carter's 'pulls-no-punches' speech illustrates the insidious relationships between 'defence' correspondents, 'defence' politicians and 'defence' chiefs.

It's sobering to think of the respect accorded to figures like Carter who, from Iraq to Afghanistan, has led this country's forces in illegal invasions, ruinous occupations and the mass elimination of life. Dripping in establishment honours (KCB CBE DSO ADC), it seems the more death and destruction such people deliver, the greater elevation and higher platform they receive, particularly from our liberal politicians and media.

It's also remarkable that Carter's host, RUSI, a military-minded 'think tank' founded by the Duke of Wellington and figure-headed by the Queen, can be so liberal-approved and cited by the BBC as somehow 'neutral'. Again, we see how elite militarism flourishes through liberal deference.      

The excellent historian and journalist Mark Curtis has just launched Declassified. Alongside Curtis's regular output charting the UK's current political-military criminality around the world, it's a most valuable resource, chronicling Britain's dark historic warmongering, proxy coups, human rights atrocities and other past crimes.

Rather than indulging drum-beating hawks like Carter, politicians, journalists and anyone else really concerned with understanding and challenging British militarism might find in such places much more useful information and critical direction. 

Demonising Russia and RT - the dark effects of liberal authoritarianism

The current political and media assault on Russia, fearmongering over Russian 'bots', and McCarthyite outing of  'Russia apologists' casts revealing light not only on the usual right-wing foghorns, but the more crucial role liberals play in upholding, reproducing and naturalising the dominant order.

Such is the rising liberal antagonism against Russia that leftist writer Glenn Greenwald has had to dismiss countless facile tweets casting him as a Kremlin stooge, while pointing out that Western liberal charges against Russia are now so hysterical and distorted that it's left even liberals in Russia itself perplexed and isolated.

As Greenwald notes, spurious claims of Russian subterfuge are now spreading like wildfire. Having helped de-bunk so many false and unsubstantiated charges, he asserts that:

an incredibly reckless, anything-goes climate prevails when it comes to claims about Russia. Media outlets will publish literally any official assertion as Truth without the slightest regard for evidentiary standards. Seeing Putin lurking behind and masterminding every western problem is now religious dogma – it explains otherwise-confounding developments, provides certainty to a complex world, and alleviates numerous factions of responsibility – so media outlets and their journalists are lavishly rewarded any time they publish accusatory stories about Russia (especially ones involving the U.S. election), even if they end up being debunked.

Every other standard-bearing Guardian liberal now seems enthused to join in the anti-Russia frenzy. From 'robbing Hillary' of the White House, to 'bot-shaping' the Great British Public over Brexit, it all links back to that most damnable Putin-Kremlin 'interference in our affairs'.

Conveniently, this dispenses with any serious need to examine the crisis of neoliberalism that has given rise to Trump and Brexit. Likewise, there's no need to detain ourselves with the crucial part our liberal class has played in entrenching that neoliberal 'reality', leading to the populist reactions and eruptions we're now seeing. Instead, we're all enjoined to rage against Trump, bewail the 'Brexit apocalypse' and point an all-indicting finger at those scheming Russians.

Caught up in her own political crisis, Theresa May saw the obvious distracting opportunity to denounce Russia and Putin. It should have been equally obvious even to the Westminster bubble media what she was up to. Instead, true to form, the BBC dutifully headlined all her contrived charges.

Yet, BBC journalists need no automatic cue from imposters like May when it comes to pious evasion. They're already BBC-primed. And there's no more ready target for BBC worthies than that odious media usurper, Russia Today.

Whatever the limitations of RT, it provides an important counterpoint to much loaded Western media. For Jonathan Cook:

RT is far from a perfect source of news – no state or corporate media is – but it is a vital voice to have online. It has become a sanctuary for many seeking alternative, and often far more honest, critiques both of western domestic policy and of western interference in far-off lands. It has its own political agenda, of course, but, despite the assumption of many western liberals, it provides a far more accurate picture of the world than the western corporate media on a vast range of issues.

The level of anti-Russia liberal chatter was raised again after ex-First Minister for Scotland Alex Salmond launched his new chat show on RT. Seemingly appalled by the move, the BBC's Nick Robinson used his 'impartial' BBC Twitter account to insist that our open democratic broadcaster cannot be compared with their closed authoritarian pretender. For Robinson:

The question is not whether @AlexSalmond is making Kremlin propaganda. It is whether he’s lending his credibility & that of his guests to Kremlin propaganda

It most likely doesn't occur to Robinson that he is only able to say such things as an elevated correspondent from the BBC because his very own words are so establishment-tuned. That's a form of managed denial, institutional conditioning and state control that Russia and RT are never likely to match.

Readers might also like to recall here Robinson's own display of liberal tolerance, as he smashed up an anti-war placard outside Westminster.

Yet, in a field of serious competitors, one might struggle to find a more brazen platform for state propaganda than the BBC's This Week. Even beyond the system-serving output of Robinson, Marr, Kuenssberg, Humphrys and trusted BBC others - one wonders quite how the openly-reactionary Andrew Neil still manages to maintain such a commanding - and highly-remunerated - presence at our 'public service' broadcaster.

In his latest set piece, Neil, aided by nodding accomplices Michael Portillo and Ed Balls, launched a searing attack on RT presenter Afshin Rattansi - who, of course, had been given his own 'take of the week' just to show how 'open and balanced' the BBC really are.

Repeatedly labelling RT "Roubles Today", Neil laid out a long list of alleged Russian and RT villainy, from unleashing 'bot armies' to peddling every form of conspiracy theory. At one point, Neil's rambling charge sheet on Russian interference lapsed into emotional blather, pleading to understand from Rattansi just why RT is trying everything in its power "to divide us":

"The whole point of Russia Today and the election meddling done on social media is all focused to undermine our faith in our democratic institutions and to divide us....Why do you want to be a part of that?"

Neil's touching urging to 'leave our democracy alone' was met with a look of bemused incredulity from Rattansi.

Joining the anti-RT chorus at BBC Radio Scotland's Shereen show, ex-MP and enduring Blairite Tom Harris also castigated Salmond for ending his career in such an "undignified" way, by "selling your soul for Kremlin gold". He also rubbished anyone who would dare equate RT and the BBC, calling it an "appalling comparison."

One might recall that, unlike an unrepentant Harris, Salmond didn't vote to bomb Iraq, resulting in the deaths of a million souls and untold, ongoing carnage. As with similar appearances by other media-hopping warmongers like Alastair Campbell, none of this studio ensemble seemed able to contemplate the significance of Harris's political crimes, or mention the dark irony of his own shameless resort to late career-washing. The idea of the BBC acting as a major medium of state propaganda was, of course, ignored by all as no less risible. 

Alas, the noble liberal crusade against Russia and RT has also spread to further parts of the liberal-left commentariat. In a tortured Bella Caledonia article, From Russia With LOLs, editor Mike Small repeated all the same liberal-based charges, declaring that:

The deluge of evidence about the actions of Russia to effect the outcome of the Brexit referendum and the US election will continue, and as they do it will become not just increasingly absurd to call Russia a democracy, it will become increasingly offensive to do so.

In a piece that could have been lifted straight from the Guardian, Small even used the notorious US-funded, CIA-fronted Freedom House as a 'valid source' in pointing-up Russia's lowly 'democracy rating'. To many critical responses, Small again objected that "Russia is not a functioning democracy."

How readily faux leftist commentators adopt this spurious liberal box-placing narrative, no less facile than the 'our model democracy' gushings from Neil.

And this fits a pattern of mutual liberal approval and encouragement. The BBC/Guardian liberal fixation on Russia and RT provides a leading, 'moral' narrative for others on the soft liberal left to follow. Thus did much of the SNP leadership feel 'upright' in openly distancing themselves from Salmond's RT show.

The default defence here, of course, is 'liberal consistency'; in essence, 'we won't turn a blind-eye to Russia's human rights abuses, homophobia or state interference'.

Much of this indulges in conformist notions of a still-benign and enlightened West. In geopolitical terms, it's manifested, typically, in liberal denunciations of Russia's 'aggression' over Ukraine/Crimea, rather than actual recognition of the Western-backed neo-fascist coup carried out there, or the wider realpolitik of Russia protecting its territorial interests from an expansionist Nato and EU.

Nor is such vilification of Russia ever comparatively consistent. Where are the similar liberal denunciations of Saudi Arabia, and the armed support it receives from the UK in annihilating Yemen? Where, indeed, are any of the multiple crimes committed by Britain and the US around the globe so scathingly denounced? Where are all the liberal political and media calls to impose sanctions on the outlaw state of Israel, as it continues its brutal 60-year occupation and persecution of Palestinians?

This 'liberal consistency' also involves an often unctuous, virtue-signalling identity politics in attacking Russia. It's right, of course, to denounce the persecution of any vulnerable community anywhere in the world. Nor do we need deny the criminal capacities of the Russian state, just as we understand the criminal capacities of most others. Yet, liberal voices have elevated such concerns to a much more Manichean, 'Free World' level, suggesting capacities for repression that are somehow endemic or particular to Russia. The main ideological beneficiaries of this shouldn't be hard to fathom.    

What's so dismally absent here is any critical context on why Russia is so vilified, and what propagandist purpose it serves. It evades all the real power issues: notably, how, as a serious capitalist contender, Russia refuses to conform to the West's 'consensual' demands, or allow its economy to be appropriated; and how the omnipresent 'Russian threat' is needed to help sustain a whole militarist, war-waging, corporate arms economy in the West. There's an entire historical background on Russia defending its borders and resources against Western aggression and interference that seemingly doesn't even occur to the crusading liberal mindset. 

 And, as Chomsky so neatly reminds us on all those claims of 'Russian interference':

"Half the world is cracking up in laughter. The United States doesn’t just interfere in elections. It overthrows governments it doesn’t like, institutes military dictatorships."

We can, indeed, but laugh at the indignant liberal charge that Russia is 'meddling with our democracy'.

Yet, the darker implications of such repeated tropes are now becoming apparent. The liberal baying against Russia has raised the stakes for a more punishing turn to online control and censorship.

Twitter has banned RT and Sputnik adverts. Facebook is under increasing pressure to 'police' 'fake' Russian content. An RT affiliate has been forced to register as a "foreign agent" under US 'anti-propaganda' laws. And, in true Orwellian-speak, Google has announced that it will now "de-rank" RT and Sputnik. As reported at RT:

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says the company will “engineer” specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine’s news delivery services. “We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites – it’s basically RT and Sputnik,”Schmidt said...The Alphabet chief, who has been referred to by Hillary Clinton as a “longtime friend,” added that the experience of “the last year” showed that audiences could not be trusted to distinguish fake and real news for themselves. (Italics original.)

The task of hegemony - as in how to build legitimacy and maintain popular consent - requires an ever-inventive mobilisation of class forces, political interests and cultural ideas to help insulate, validate and sustain power. And it's here that a liberal network, notably its media arm, plays such a vital role: in normalising the political and economic order; in moderating dissent and radical options; in managing neoliberalism and upholding corporate rule as still the only game in town; in repeating the same elite-based narratives and arguments over issues like Brexit; in castigating Trump as a crazy outlier, rather than the symptom of a crazy system; in keeping the truth of climate emergency and corporate culpability safely detached; in cheering and mitigating Western warmongering; and in amplifying the establishment's cast of international villains.

In so many ways, liberal agencies help ensure system continuity. Their spreading of official enemy narratives has been key in helping to popularise the fake meme 'fake news', a corporate-serving contrivance that disguises the real manipulation of news and information.

And this is giving impetus to more sinister openings. Seizing the 'fake news' moment, a concerted corporate purge is now underway to take out not only media like RT but multiple other leftist platforms, with barely a liberal murmur. As Cook warns:

They [RT] and progressive sites are being gradually silenced and blacklisted, herding us back into the arms of the corporate propagandists. Few liberals have been prepared to raise their voices on behalf of RT, forgetting warnings from history, such as Martin Niemoller’s anti-Nazi poem “First they came for the socialists”.

Rania Khalek also notes how the feeding of anti-Russia hysteria has much slippier consequences:

Google will pick and choose what ppl see and don’t see all bc of anti-Russia hysteria pushed by the US govt. the media ppl cheering this on need to understand that this is a slippery slope to their outlets being censored 

And Adam Johnson reinforces the point:

leftists & liberals shld ask themselves: which is more of a threat to the left: (1) state-run TV channel whose avg program is watched by less than 30K ppl/day (2) the world's second-largest corporation making ad hoc calls about what is & isn't "propaganda" and "misinformation"

So, will those lofty liberals start to realise what kind of service to power they provide? Will all those liberal 'champions of free and equal speech' now stand up for RT? Will they acknowledge their complicit part in stoking the fear agenda that allows governments and corporate monoliths to collude in closing down awkward viewpoints? As the 'halt Russia' and 'fake news' purge plays out against more selected leftist sites, will they reflect on their own liberal authoritarianism as the most perverse threat to real independent media and democratic expression?

Questioning BBC militarist-speak: an exchange with the Executive Complaints Unit

Following prior correspondence with the BBC over its coverage of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, an exchange with the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit.

(Sent 3 September 2017)
Ref: CAS-4541173-LC5LL7

Dear ECU

Further to my recent complaint, I wish to register my dissatisfaction with two BBC response pieces, and to request that the ECU now consider the four specific points raised in my original letter.

On point 1, please provide a detailed response to my question, and specify precisely why, according to Sean Moss, this requested information is "not a service we [the BBC] provide". 

On point 2, please tell me why the BBC failed to offer any counterview to Admiral Philip Jones and other military/political/public figures in its live report pieces on HMS Queen Elizabeth. 

On point 3, please tell me why, with reference to the BBC's Charter requirements for 'impartiality' and 'due weight',  no such alternative view can be discerned either here or over the BBC's wider output.

On point 4, please show me where the BBC's coverage of HMS QE, and other similar events, have been specifically contextualised and explored in relation to Britain's aggressive militarism, arms supplies to tyrant regimes, and particular part in the bombing of Yemen. Also, given its highly approving coverage of HMS QE, please explain why the BBC offer no similar level of coverage to describe and question the scale, cost and devastating human impact of such weaponry?          

All correspondence on this matter can be read, in sequence, via these links:

Drool Britannia: complaint to BBC over naked militarist propaganda

BBC naval gazing and coverage of British militarism: a further exchange

BBC all on deck, lauding 'benign' state militarism: a further exchange

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards
John Hilley

------------------------------

Reply from ECU Complaints Director Colin Tregear:

14 September 2017

Dear Mr Hilley

Your complaint about BBC News

Thank you for your email of 3 September regarding the BBC News coverage of the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth in Portsmouth.

As you know, the BBC Complaints Team has informed you it does not intend to respond further to your complaint. It now falls to the Executive Complaints Unit to decide whether you were given a reasonable response to your original complaint and whether the BBC Complaints Team was correct in deciding that further investigation of your complaint wasn’t justified. This is in line with the Interim BBC Complaints Framework and Procedures1 which sets out the process for handling complaints.

I understand you think the coverage amounted to “state media propaganda” and the BBC took “an obviously strong and partisan position in upholding, praising and celebrating… British state militarism”. You are, of course, entitled to your view but I think the responses you received from Emma Duff on 24 August and Sean Moss on 29 August were reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances, addressed the specific concerns you raised and explained how the requirements of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines for due impartiality were met. I therefore think the decision not to engage in further correspondence on the matter was justified.

I should clarify you can make a Freedom of Information request for the information you requested in Point 1 of your email of 3 September. Details of how to do so can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/requesting-information.

There’s no provision for further appeal against this decision within the BBC. However, you can contact the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, if you believe your complaint has identified a breach of the Ofcom Code (which can be seen at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-andon-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code), though of course it would be for Ofcom itself to decide whether to consider your complaint. Information about lodging a complaint with 1

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/accountability/consultations/complaints_fram ework.pdf 2

Ofcom can be found at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-acomplaint. Ofcom acknowledges all complaints received, but will not normally write back to individual complainants with the outcome of its considerations.

Yours sincerely

Colin Tregear

Complaints Director

-----------------------

Dear Mr Tregear

Thanks for your reply. It is clear from your cursory and patrician-like response that no serious or detailed consideration of my original questions was ever forthcoming.

You are also, of course, entitled to your view on such matters, the substantive difference being that the ideological basis of the opinion you so openly express here duly fits with the BBC's own establishment worldview.

Or, as Noam Chomsky once reminded Andrew Marr, if you held any radically different views, you wouldn't be sitting where you are (1).  

You call the responses to my questions on such matters "reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances." How very BBC. Is it unreasonable or inappropriate to ask why the BBC are such ready exponents of expanding British militarism, yet such feeble voices on its appalling human impact?   

In routinely lauding Britain's power-projecting warships, killer planes (2) and state-of-the-art laser missiles (3), the BBC are acting as an effective public relations arm of the MoD and its corporate partners.     

As with its dutiful silence on the state-corporate villains (4) trading this past week at the DSEI arms fair (5) - and that dark organisation's hosting of Michael Fallon's monstrous sales pitch (6) - the BBC's failure to cover, question and expose Britain's relentless warmongering, wicked weapons economy and supporting culture of militarism renders it a complicit party to mass UK crimes around the world.

I trust that readers of this and my preceding correspondence with the BBC over its HMS QE coverage will, at least, have gained some further insight into the power-serving nature of British state media, the editorial framing of its militarist narratives, the lamentable absence of alternative views, and the Orwellian layers of mitigation and denial helping to keep public objections to all such propaganda safely marginalised.

Perhaps, one day, some of those same 'journalists', editors and gatekeepers may come to reflect more internally on the BBC's key part in helping to sell aggressive militarism and whitewash UK/Western war policy, all serving to increase and perpetuate vast human suffering.  

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=GjENnyQupow

(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38510344

(3) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-30145680/flying-the-nintendo-fighter-jet

(4) https://www.caat.org.uk/issues/arms-fairs/dsei

(5) https://www.dsei.co.uk/#/

(6) https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/908259508992049154

Sincerely

John Hilley  

BBC all on deck, lauding 'benign' state militarism: a further exchange

Following an initial letter/reply and further exchange with the BBC on its reporting of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, I received this latest communication (29/8/2017) from the BBC's Sean Moss. My further response is noted below.

Dear Mr Hilley

Ref: CAS-4541173-LC5LL7

Thank you for getting in touch again about our live page reporting on the arrival of new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in its home port. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-hampshire-40937149)

To take your original points in order, at your request:

1: This isn’t a service we provide.

2:  The premise here is your belief that an unquantified but significant strand of public opinion, which you term as “anti-war,” exists and should have been included in our coverage here. However the fact that alternative views exist on a given story does not mean that we’re obliged to include them and this story, at its core, is about the completion of a new UK aircraft carrier and its journey to its home port. Your characterisation of the alternative view here is also largely based on your interpretation of the navy’s role and the words "maritime power," which you outline exclusively along military lines without referring, for example, to additional functions in humanitarian and emergency scenarios and in supporting efforts against international crime.

3: As above, there’s no obligation we reflect every view on a subject and we believe the contents of this live page adhered to our requirement for due impartiality.

4: This is essentially an entirely separate point, linked here for the purposes of your wider argument and to which we can only add that we’ve reported extensively on the Yemen Crisis, most notably including Orla Guerin’s report from the city of Aden, published last month. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-middle-east-40748158/yemen-crisis-bbc-gains-rare-access)

On September 8^th last year Newsnight reported on a draft copy of a report into whether UK-made weapons are being used against civilians in Yemen, asking “Do weapons sold to Saudi Arabia by Britain break international humanitarian law with their use in Yemen, and if so, what should be our response?”

So this isn’t a topic that has gone unexplored by BBC News and we've noted your points but do not consider they have suggested a possible breach of the BBC's standards to justify further investigation or a more detailed reply.

If you are dissatisfied about our decision not to take your complaint further, you can contact the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) who will consider whether this was an appropriate decision.

If you wish to contact the ECU please write to it within 20 working days of receiving this reply. You can email ecu@bbc.co.uk  or write to: Executive Complaints Unit, BBC, Broadcast Centre, London W12 7TQ. Please include the case reference number which you have been given.

Best wishes,

Sean Moss
BBC News website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/ 

My response

Dear Sean Moss

Thanks for replying. As expected, your response merely confirms the BBC's capacity for uniform-speak. It's yet another illustration of state media marching in tune with state militarism.

Allow me, in turn, to address your points in the same order.   

1. This is blatant evasion. At the very least, you should provide some justification for the extent of journalistic resources expended on this story, an output, we must suspect, consistent with the wasteful expenditure on the ship itself. Readers of your dismissive reply here can judge for themselves what lies behind such a denial of basic public information.

2. Isn't it all too revealing that you choose to interpret "maritime power" in this case as somehow 'benign'? You object that I didn't note the Navy's "additional functions in humanitarian and emergency scenarios and in supporting efforts against international crime." Why didn't Admiral Sir Philip Jones specifically use that kind of terminology - something like 'major maritime support role' - rather than his very obvious assertion of boastful militarist might? That's the real profile being projected by Admiral Jones, as amplified by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon:

Today we welcome our mighty new warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth to her home for the very first time. She is Britain’s statement to the world: a demonstration of British military power and our commitment to a bigger global role.

The BBC's eager repeating of such messages demonstrates just what kind of part it plays in defining and promoting expansionist UK militarism as legitimate and benevolent. 

Here, via author and historian Mark Curtis, are some helpful links illustrating the British Navy's true, extremist agenda, and the BBC's role in approving it: 

UK Navy's openly-declared goals are to control resource-rich regions and threaten those who challenge this. 

Read what the Royal Navy is saying. Our military is managed by imperialist, militarist extremists. 

The #BBC is simply a medium for the British state, a key part of its information operations 

Again, this can’t be MSM newsworthy since it would serve no political/propaganda function 

How did the Head of UK Navy become radicalised? Was it his private madrassa? The videos he watched? Could MI5 have prevented it? 

UK disinformation system is so extreme, Head of Navy's extremism doesn't even get reported, let alone ridiculed. 

Head of Navy confirms official meaning of 'national' . I.e, 'militarist elite'. Similar to term 'national interest'. 

One of the government's embedded spokespeople at the BBC. 

'Warfighting': the UK's comparative advantage in the global division of labour, as seen by elites  

#Oman, already a crawling UK intell base, has in effect become a UK military colony.

Reminder: New 'UK' aircraft carriers will also deploy *US* combat aircraft. para 3.19 

UK's new Navy warships are appropriately named 'City-class', indicating ongoing commercial/military imperialism 

Head of Royal Navy. Actually, aircraft carriers are offensive attack systems, used in first strike. See use of term ‘deterrent’ to mislead.

Citing the UK government's "massive £178 billion military re-equipment programme", and key speeches given recently by Admiral Jones to the City of London, Curtis observes that the head of the Royal Navy:

"is seriously saying that British sea power and military force will protect and British financial and commercial interests, including those of the City of London, especially in Asia. This is a clear exposition of the return of imperial gunboat diplomacy that Britain envisages in the post-Brexit world."

As Media Lens also put it:

A major function of @BBCNews is to boost public support for 'our' armed forces #PermaWar

I wonder why Permanent War and these core motivations aren't considered by you and the BBC in your understanding of the Royal Navy and its "additional functions.''

3. Again, readers can form their own judgment on your claim here to BBC 'impartiality'. What you're really saying is that the BBC, as 'all-knowing arbiters', will not permit alternative voices to the commissioning of this £3 billion ship, and Britain's dark militarist ambitions, to be aired. As previously noted, that's a subjective editorial judgement, one that weighs decisively in support of a particular, establishment view. That's not editorial 'impartiality'. It's straight propaganda. And, as Media Lens assert, it's a service that must be dutifully maintained:

Challenge anyone @BBCNews about omissions and biases and you'll get silence or a robotic assertion of 'impartiality'

4. My linking of the warship to events in Yemen was not a 'separate issue', or some 'additional argument'. It's internal to the same question about Britain's aggressive militarism, and the BBC's own culpability in failing to convey the true scale of it. 

Also, like other key BBC pieces on Yemen's humanitarian crisis, Orla Guerin's report says precisely nothing about Britain's part in sending arms to Saudi Arabia for the mass bombing of Yemen. More generally, beyond occasional and guarded discussion, many viewers of major BBC news reports on Yemen may likely never know that the UK is deeply involved in the human suffering which Guerin describes, such is the consistent level of BBC omission. Again, given the BBC Charter's own insistence of 'due weight', where is the appropriate level of coverage across BBC news headlining Britain's criminal involvement? As Curtis comments:

Imagine reporting this and not mentioning UK arms/advice/training. Seriously, it takes real commitment. #Yemen 

More BBC pieces on #Yemen without mentioning that this is also a UK war

That complicit blind eye to aggressive UK militarism is the key context to my complaint about the BBC's celebratory coverage of HMS Queen Elizabeth. I suspect that, as part of the 'BBC guard', you will continue to deny and dismiss such connections. As ever with such enquiries and exchanges, my own small purpose here is to help shed a little light on BBC uniformity and service to power.

I will forward my complaint to the Executive Complaints Unit.

Kind regards
John Hilley

BBC naval gazing and coverage of British militarism: a further exchange

A reply (24 August 2017) from the BBC concerning my complaint over its coverage of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth on its arrival in Portsmouth.

Dear Mr Hilley

Reference CAS-4529010-T2T6CD 

Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC News Website coverage of HMS Queen Elizabeth's arrival in Portsmouth. 

I understand you feel the coverage was both excessive and biased, failing to feature the views of those who opposed the commissioning of the ship. 

While I appreciate how strongly you feel about the points you raise, we would explain that the intention in our live coverage of this event was simply to report on the ship's arrival in her home port. As part of this we spoke with members of the crowd who turned out to watch the carrier's approach, discussed its construction, and featured speeches from senior naval personnel and Theresa May. 

However we would point out that across our wider news coverage we did discuss some of the criticism the vessel has faced. In his report on BBC One's 'Breakfast' programme on 16 August Duncan Kennedy acknowledged that it was also "a controversial day" owing to the "cost of the carrier"; he explained, "critics say the carrier has cost more than £3 billion and doesn't have a clearly defined role". 

Please be assured, the BBC is committed to impartial reporting at all times. Indeed, our News editors ensure that over a reasonable period of time we reflect the range of significant views, opinions and trends on particular issues, but it's important to add here that our published Editorial Guidelines explain that not every issue or viewpoint necessarily has to be included in each individual report. 

Account needs to be taken of the way a subject is covered over a period of time; perfect balance is difficult to achieve on every single individual occasion, while overall it is a more achievable goal taking into account our coverage as a whole. 

The key point is that the BBC as an organisation has no view or position itself on anything we may report upon - our aim is to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of our audiences. 

Nonetheless, I am sorry to read you feel we are failing to meet our objectives.

Please be assured, we appreciate your feedback on this issue and I have passed your comments forward on a report which will be read by senior BBC management and the BBC News team.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. 

Kind regards

Emma Duff

BBC Complaints Team

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

My further response to the BBC

Dear Emma Duff

Thanks for responding to my letter of complaint.

As anticipated, it's a lamentable copy-piece of BBC mitigation, evasion and denial.

Predictably, you insist that the "BBC is committed to impartial reporting at all times". That's a claim no serious analysis of these propaganda-loaded reports could sustain.

You mention "how strongly" you think I feel about these matters. Let's explore that for a moment. The important point here is not the 'strength' of feeling, it's how we seek to define it. I do not write or speak in an objective way. I have an openly subjective view. All of our thoughts, feelings and expressions are subjective, in one form or another, overtly or otherwise stated.

And that includes the BBC, whose directors, editors and journalists also take subjective positions, rooted in approval of 'BBC values' and strong, supportive feelings about 'what BBC journalism stands for'. It suggests a strong endorsement of the BBC's establishment status, together with a strongly selective 'understanding' of the permissible boundaries of journalistic expression.

It is a matter of contention how able we are to make 'objective' assessments of any subjective output, particularly that specifically claiming to be 'impartial'. Here, again, our own subjective interpretations cannot be removed from any supposed 'objective' examination.

Yet, any rational reading of these reports would acknowledge that the BBC has taken an obviously strong and partisan position in upholding, praising and celebrating the HMS Queen Elizabeth and other such displays of British state militarism.

Again, that's my view. The point of concern here is not just that the BBC takes an opposite view (which it clearly does), but that - as you contend - it claims to take "no view" at all.

This kind of reportage might, at least, be deemed 'honest', were the BBC to accept that their output is, indeed, subjectively made; that they do, indeed, take a position, just like most other media. Yet you insist that, unlike my "strong" position, the BBC are still making impartial editorial decisions and reporting in a balanced, objective way.

You mention the requirements for impartiality, as set out in the BBC Charter. Again, we have to look at this document and its principal terms as both subjectively constructed by elite interests and subject to privileged interpretation by BBC directors.

At every level, from the commissioning of output to the handling of complaints, it's the subjective judgement of those same BBC figures who, in practice, determine what constitutes "due impartiality", and what's considered "due weight." You have simply reiterated those 'guiding' biases in your letter.

As with the compliance of senior editors and journalists, this suggests a level of indoctrination so deeply-rooted that those proclaiming notions of BBC 'impartiality' either can't see this filtering process, or, in daily acts of prudent self-restraint, simply avoid any career-threatening gaze.    

A determining factor here, as you note, is not just what's contained in a report, or set of reports, but "the way a subject is covered over a period of time." Thus, you point to the inclusion in a Breakfast News report of apparent 'concern' over the 'controversial cost' of this vessel. Do you consider this ample questioning of Britain's vast, wasteful and immoral military spending? Where, one may reasonably ask, are all those other 'balancing' pieces? Where is the 'due weight' of anti-war/weaponry sentiment duly represented?

As we've seen, such token and tepid mentions are dwarfed by the sheer scale and tone of reports lauding the ship and what it supposedly represents to 'the nation'. And, just like that task force, the BBC's subjectively-determined mission here is not just about 'reflecting' public feeling, but leading on, and feeding, dominant ideas and interests, ever careful to omit and circumvent that which casts British militarism in a negative light.  

In the same dutiful way, your reply completely ignores my questions on the BBC's reporting and quoting of senior military figures. Where, I repeat, are the counterpoints to Admiral Philip Jones's provocative assertions of Britain as a major maritime power? Why was he permitted to enunciate, unchallenged, such imperialist-sounding claims of military superiority? Where is the critical scrutiny, either in this set of reports, or in wider terms, of the UK state's war posturing and weapons prowess?

You also ignored, in this same, vital context, my question about the extent of Britain's dark involvement in weapons procurement and supplies to Saudi  Arabia and other regimes, with notable reference to the human catastrophe of Yemen. Why was this key context not duly mentioned in these reports, and why hasn't that state-corporate arms nexus been given due, critical attention over the longer period?

This set of reports show quite clearly that the BBC are not only openly supportive of HMS Queen Elizabeth, but are strongly promoting the entire culture of UK militarism.

Just as the BBC have failed to engage these core issues, your letter has avoided answering the specific points of my initial letter. Please be informed that I'd like them raised to the next level of the complaints procedure for serious consideration.

Kind regards
John  Hilley