TERRORIST CATS, MEDIA BAGS
The media: Paul Johnson
on how liberalism sells the pass to terrorism
LAST week was a great media victory for the terrorists. That should not surprise us. We are lucky enough to live in a liberal society. But there is a heavy price to pay for the privilege. By its nature, liberalism has a streak of masochism, verging at times on self-destruction. The terrorists know it, and exploit it ruthlessly. Their aim is to wreck liberal societies. It is the one object that all the various terrorist groups have in common. But, by a grim paradox, their most effective weapons are not their own bullets and explosives but our liberal vir-' tues which they plan to destroy: our fair- mindedness, our willingness to see both sides of an argument, our love of debate and self-criticism, our reluctance to take life or exert strong authority, especially force in any form, our pity for the under- dog, real or imaginary, and, not least, our desire for a quiet life at almost any price, which at times verges on cowardice.
During the 1930s, thugs like Mussolini and Hitler, who began their ascent to power as street-corner terrorists, took full advantage of these characteristics to work their will. It is true that today's terrorists do not yet control great nations. But Libya, Syria and Iran, all of which practise state terrorism, dispose of considerable resources, and behind it all is the Soviet Union, which has been operating terrorist- training bases in the Crimea since the 1960s. The threat to us is not yet as great as that posed by the dictators in the 1930s, but it is already formidable and growing all the time. The events of last week suggest that we are in very poor shape to meet it.
Air strikes like those conducted by Mr Reagan last week have many obvious disadvantages, particularly in terms of win- ning the media war. There are many Western correspondents in Libya. They operate under considerable difficulties. Their colleagues in Lebanon have been threatened with death, and in some cases murdered, for not reporting events in ways the Arabs favour. Western reporters in Tripoli are in considerable personal dan- ger. Of course they are taken to see civilian damage which the Libyan authorities say has been inflicted by American aircraft. Of course they are told of dead babies, killed by Reagan and Thatcher. As they are allowed to move only under close escort, they have no means of discovering the truth for themselves. Indeed, if they suc- ceeded in doing so they would be instantly expelled, or quite possibly shot. All they can do is to send out such material as comes their way, which in the circum- stances is bound to serve Libyan propa- ganda purposes.
Naturally, our newspapers and television stations give prominence to these reports, photographs and film. They come, as it were, straight from the war zone. Inexplic- ably, no comparable material has been put out by the Americans. At the time I write, we have had no aerial photos of damage inflicted on the terrorist targets attacked, no detailed military rationale of the opera- tion at all. It is extraordinary that Ronald Reagan, 'the great communicator', should have allowed his people to be so silent and slow. The British publicity machine did make a feeble effort to put out some anti-Gaddafi stuff on Saturday. But it was largely ignored, presumably because it was so shoddily presented. For most of the week the Government's media services might just as well not have existed.
As a result of this imbalance, Gaddafi had British newspapers and television net- works eating out of his hand last week, and his media victory was inevitably reflected in public opinion polls. I suspect that he won the battle essentially, so far as Britain was concerned, on Tuesday night's televi- sion. Thereafter, Mrs Thatcher's friends in the media, and those few editors who look favourably on Ronald Reagan, were on the defensive. They took to publishing signed articles on both sides of the argument, a sure sign of editorial defeatism and cold feet. By contrast terrorist sympathisers in the media were hyperactive. They carried all before them at the BBC. After the failure of the BBC Director-General to punish anyone for the gross breaches of the regulations about interviewing terrorists, which occurred during the production of the Real Lives programme last year, the fac- tion in the BBC sympathetic to terrorism knows it has nothing to fear. The strength of such forces in the media as a whole was revealed by the National Union of Journal- ists' delegate conference at Sheffield last Friday, which carried a pro-Gaddafi re- solution by a large majority. It was moved by an Iraqi employed until recently by Jana, the so-called 'news agency' which puts out Gaddafi's official propaganda. The fact that such a man could even address the NUJ conference, let alone dictate its policy, may have come as a surprise to some people, though not to me. In a way, it was the only tactical error the pro-Gaddafi element made during the week. It let the terrorist cat out of its media bag.
But though the terrorists won a publicity victory, I am still relieved that President Reagan had the courage to attack Gadda- fi's bases, and it is good to know that we have a Prime Minister with the sense and nerve to support him. Both the British and the American governments must realise, now that they are committed to fighting state terrorism, that the media aspects of the campaign are in many ways even more important than the military. They have to be studied and waged just as carefully and expertly as anti-security measures at air- ports or precision bombing of terrorist bases. We should begin by analysing the mistakes made last week, in preparation for the next time. For there will be a next time.
To those political wiseacres who have been asserting that Mrs Thatcher has 'lost the next election' by allowing the Amer- icans to use their bases, I say: wait and see. They are assuming the question voters will face will be: 'How de we keep out of the war against terrorism?' In the 1930s, the Labour Party thought we could keep out of European war by voting, year after year against rearmament. Today it thinks we can keep out of terrorist war by voting, year after year, against the Prevention of Terrorism Act. But there is no escape. The war has already begun and we are being drawn into it merely by virtue of the fact that we are a liberal, civilised society. Everyone has to take sides in the end. Between now and the next election, hun- dreds and perhaps thousands of British and Americans are going to be killed by terror- ists, in the most horrifying circumstances. It may well be the overwhelming election issue but the question voters will then face will not be about keeping out of the war..it will be: 'Who do you want to wage t.; Margaret Thatcher or Neil ICinnock?, I 1 think I know the answer to that one.
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