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Posted by Kate Butler Mar 3, 2007 |
It was announced last week that Prince Harry, the son of the beloved late Princess Diana, will serve with British forces in Iraq. Somewhat ironically, this week also saw an announcement from British Prime Minister Tony Blair declaring that his troops’ presence in Iraq will be dramatically decreased in the months to come.
What is interesting to note is how linked these two stories have become in the eyes of the mainstream media. The fact that Britain is actually sending a Royal to fight in what is an increasingly bloody battle is indicative of how much the popularity and importance of the monarchy has decreased in the eyes of many Britons.
Sending Harry to fight in Iraq at the current time is particularly noteworthy because the deployment comes at a time when the British public is more and more against the war itself. If Harry or William had been sent over to fight in Iraq when most people in the Western world still thought there were weapons of mass destruction in the area, public opinion might have been different. There would, one assumes, have been more of a discussion of how the British were sending a Royal son over to fight for the Iraqi people, and how heroic this is.
Due to the fact that Harry is going over at a time when the British public is less and less convinced of the reasons that Tony Blair stated in 2003 when the war in Iraq began, there has been an astonishing absence of stories, opinion pieces and coverage of his deployment.
Blair’s decision to decrease the presence of the British troops in Iraq has been greeted with a similar lack of fanfare by the public and the press in the U.K.; there is a general feeling that this move is simply too little, too late. In fact, the media has devoted considerably less press to the war in general in the past 6 months.
However, if something happens to the young prince while fighting for his country, one can be sure that the media, again sensing interest and public outrage about the situation in Iraq, will once more revive their coverage of this unpopular war.