By Matt Frei
BBC News, Washington
Different countries mourn their fallen in different ways.
The flag-draped coffins of Italian soldiers are applauded as they prepare to get lowered into the ground.
In Israel, relatives and friends display unfettered and unembarrassed grief as they throw themselves on the coffins.
In America, a democracy which worships its military more than any other I know, the ritual after death in battle is dignified, understated and wrapped in etiquette.
If you have any doubts about this, I suggest attending a burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
The undulating fields of gravestones peer out over the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial and Capitol Hill.
In Washington, the prize of liberty is architecturally linked to the price of life.
Respect
This country owes its creation to the blood of its soldiers and never lets you forget it.
The military is a part of every day life. At virtually every airport you see soldiers returning from the front in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The radio is full of spots advertising discounts for military families. On Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day, our neighbours – who loathed George W Bush and his war in Iraq – hang out a super-sized Stars and Stripes.
I was on the shuttle flight to New York last month with the usual crowd of Capitol Hill staffers – a few congressmen, some agitated banking executives and napping lobbyists.
Suddenly, the captain announced that we had some soldiers on board who had just returned from Iraq. The whole plane erupted in applause. Respect for the military transcends party lines and opinions about war.
So it always struck me and my American friends as odd that the Bush administration maintained the ban on footage of the flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers returning from Iraq.
The ban was first implemented by Mr Bush’s father during the first Gulf War, in an attempt to avoid the kinds of images that had undermined support for the Vietnam War.
"There is plenty of personal material to put a face, a name and a story to the awful statistics of war"
But the images themselves do not create a mood swing for or against a conflict, they merely underpin existing impressions.
The concealed coffins of Dover Air Force Base – a ban which has since been lifted by the Obama administration – mirrored the many veiled justifications for a war that was overshadowed by too many questions.
And so we come to Britain, a country that has gone to war more often than any of its European neighbours since World War II.
Britain fought the Falklands War in 1982 to much of the world’s astonishment.
For the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges it was like "two bald men fighting over a comb".
Worthy cause
Britain relishes a just war. Lady Thatcher egged on President George Bush Sr to dispatch troops to Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
British public opinion was far more enthusiastic about a military engagement in the boggy Balkans than the House of Commons.
It was Tony Blair who persuaded Bill Clinton to use force in Kosovo.
Apparently, the two had a stand-up row in the Oval Office with the British Prime Minister shaming the American President into action.
The Iraq war was the exception to the rule and Afghanistan is proving to be an interesting case.
After 9/11 there was very little opposition to the Afghan war.
The combination of going after al-Qaeda and removing a medieval regime that banned women’s education was considered a worthy cause.
The war appeared to be over almost before it began and warnings about the treacherous terrain of Afghanistan soon dissipated.
How things have changed.
In the space of two days last week, Britain lost eight soldiers, three of them just 18 years old.
Some of the soldiers had kept journals which have been reprinted in the press. Others had been featured on national TV before they were killed.
In other words, there is plenty of personal material to put a face, a name and a story to the awful statistics of war.
Insufficient armour
The town of Wootton Bassett, which is close to the air force base where coffins are flown into, has provided a chorus of grief.
Thousands of people lined the quaint streets on Tuesday to welcome back the fallen heroes.
Many cried. Others cheered. Uniformed veterans hung their heads in honour before applauding.
Wootton Bassett has done this 80 times since the beginning of the Afghan war and twice in the last week alone.
This is raw and unscripted grief, leavened by shock. Who knows where it will lead
Everyone is watching whether the beast of public outrage will stir once again.
It has done so often enough this year, most memorably over the MPs’ expenses scandal.
So far the picture is mixed. There have been some poignant questions about insufficient armour in Afghanistan.
They have been asked in some of the journals of the fallen soldiers, and repeated in the pub and on the floor of the House of Commons.
This is damaging and – almost inevitably – the government of the day will be blamed. Take cover, Gordon.
Every country hates the idea that its sons and daughters are being asked to risk their lives on the battlefield with dodgy equipment.
The latest opinion polls indicate that the public and parliament are still behind this war.
But the casualties mount, the possibility of defeat is discussed and the definitions of victory become increasingly woolly.
Britain still mourns its dead in Afghanistan with pride and applause. That may change if the cargo of coffins becomes more regular.
Meanwhile, Britain’s colonial history lingers uncomfortably on the sidelines.
In 1842, 16,000 men and their dependants evacuated Kabul after a disastrous occupation.
Only one of them, Dr William Brydon, a military surgeon survived.
The rest were killed by winter, hunger and Afghan tribesmen who resented the presence of armed foreigners and infidels on their soil.
The last thing that the British government now needs is for the public to start re-reading the history books.
Matt Frei is the presenter of BBC World News America which airs every weekday on BBC News, BBC World News and BBC America (for viewers outside the UK only).
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A gift for the libel tourists
Britain’s libel laws are killing investigative journalism. But the News of the World scandal makes reform even more unlikely
Why is it that grubby journalists have to sully the reputation of the good? The furore surrounding the News of the World and its use of private detectives to delve into the mobile phones and other records of public figures could not have come at a worse time for journalism.
I say this not to defend the practitioners – I am not one to defend the status quo. This profession needs far greater accountability, on issues such as conflicts of interest, and a strong and formal code of conduct to guide the working practices of reporters and editors.
But the consequences of this scandal are far more important than the future of a tabloid newspaper and a spin doctor. It is intriguing to watch the Labour party attack Andy Coulson, not for his former role as one of Rupert Murdoch’s chosen sons, but for his present role as David Cameron’s director of communications. This government, and the next Tory government, will stop at nothing to appease Murdoch and his business interests. Both parties have form on this.
The problem with British journalism is that it shouts a great deal, throws many bricks, but uncovers precious little. Investigative journalism is a declining art. Much of that is due to economics. It costs a considerable amount to deploy a team to unearth information about, say, a dodgy arms deal or collusion in torture. Sometimes months of probing leads to nothing, and with newspapers in their current parlous position, editors are under pressure to account for every penny.
But the main impediment comes from Britain’s horrific libel laws. Britain has become the libel capital of the world, home of what has come to be known as “libel tourism“, the destination of choice for Russian oligarchs and others to prosecute not just journalists, but book authors, even NGOs. The chilling effect is hard to quantify, because beyond the prosecutions lies the self-censorship that is affecting so much journalism. The new mantra, from the BBC to most newspapers, even to some bloggers, is: “Why cause trouble?”
The Commons select committee on culture, media and sport is due in a few weeks to publish its report on “press standards, privacy and libel” – note the order. They will be tempted to use the latest scandal to do the opposite of what they should. Instead of loosening libel, they are likely to harden rules on privacy.
At Index on Censorship, in conjunction with English PEN, we have been conducting our own inquiry into libel. We have spoken to editors, lawyers, publishers, bloggers and NGOs in a unified campaign for changes in the libel law. The main areas we are looking at are costs (which have spiralled out of all proportion), areas of jurisdiction and balance of proof.
When Tony Blair, in his dying days as prime minister, derided journalists as “feral beasts”, my response was to laugh. I remember a conversation a few years earlier with a friend, a former political journalist who had made the familiar journey to government service, becoming a senior information officer. He told me that, no matter what a headline might scream, he had been shocked to find out how little journalists ever found out.
On a good day, he said, the public might learn around 1% of what was going on. And now, thanks to the News of the World and others, in their pursuit of salacious gossip about celebrity, we are in danger of finding out even less.