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Royalty in combat and media action
trevellian
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This week has seen the breaking of the news that Prince Harry has been in active duty with his unit in Afghanistan for the past 10 weeks.
Although associated press were briefed of the event they were asked to keep a news blackout regarding the subject until the Prince had returned to England. This blackout was observed until a couple of days ago when the website "the drudge report" (http://www.drudgereport.com/) published the story, including the area that the Prince was serving in.
My personal opinion on the matter (and for full disclosure I should point out that I am English and have previously served in the REME - the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) is twofold - I fully support the Prince in his wishes to see active duty, in fact, as a member of the Royal family and a potential "commander-in-chief" of the armed forces I view it as a *duty* that he participates in military campaigns. Secondly, I am disgusted at the media source that broke the story before he had returned, in my mind they have deliberately endangered not only the Prince, but the men he was serving with, purely to break a story that whilst interesting to the public, was not 'in the public interest'.
What is this forums opinion on the Prince taking an active role in a military campaign (and indeed, what is your opinion on members of Royal househoulds or even political househoulds taking such action) and what is your opinion on the media reaction?
Although associated press were briefed of the event they were asked to keep a news blackout regarding the subject until the Prince had returned to England. This blackout was observed until a couple of days ago when the website "the drudge report" (http://www.drudgereport.com/) published the story, including the area that the Prince was serving in.
My personal opinion on the matter (and for full disclosure I should point out that I am English and have previously served in the REME - the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) is twofold - I fully support the Prince in his wishes to see active duty, in fact, as a member of the Royal family and a potential "commander-in-chief" of the armed forces I view it as a *duty* that he participates in military campaigns. Secondly, I am disgusted at the media source that broke the story before he had returned, in my mind they have deliberately endangered not only the Prince, but the men he was serving with, purely to break a story that whilst interesting to the public, was not 'in the public interest'.
What is this forums opinion on the Prince taking an active role in a military campaign (and indeed, what is your opinion on members of Royal househoulds or even political househoulds taking such action) and what is your opinion on the media reaction?
trevellian on
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Just a thought.
Really, this is one of the few times there's a clear right and wrong in modern politics. Harry was doing something above and beyond what you'd expect, and drudge was the embodiment of sliminess.
Yes, this. In fact when Harry was initially not allowed to serve in Iraq like he had wished I rather felt sorry for him, considering the guy was so set on actually serving his country but that his position as heir to the throne ended up preventing him from doing so. I had thought the military was being incredibly overcautious, but then hearing of this news that they did in fact let him serve in Afghanistan and did it in such a way as to actually protect him (to salve the military's worry) while letting him fulfill his service aspirations, I found to be awesome.
And then some website breaks the story that seems to amount to little more than sensationalism and is probably going to result in Harry being sent back to England.
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I don't think sliminess covers it. Willful endangerment of enlistedmen's lives for the sake of a news story is fucking repugnant.
That's already been confirmed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7270743.stm
Shame, even if his unit had given him the nickname "bullet magnet".
*edit* and reading that article to the end it appears some publication in Australia actually 'broke' the news in January, but that was contained until Drudge
The journalists responsible for this should be ashamed, absolutely disgusting. In my opinion the press these days is all too aware of their 'right' to pry into people's lives, but woefully ignorant of their responsibilties as the 'eyes & ears' of the public.
As far as the reporting of this, I think it sucks that it got leaked an he had to be pulled out, but I can't be too outraged. A secret ceases to be a secret once more than one person knows about it. I do wish Drudge and the Aussie magazine had at least waited until his tour was over before saying anything. I get the feeling that Harry won't be getting any more active duty in his career.
I find interest in the royalty to be rather silly.
He's an officer so even though he was in a combat unit I doubt he was under direct fire too much.
Yeah, it's not like it's the men in his unit who are going to pay the price for this media bullshit, being at higher risk of death due to this release.
He probably had much nicer accomodations as an officer (comparatively speaking) but he wasn't really in a lot less danger.
Indeed, I mean who would ever target a prince on a battlefield? That's silly.
A prince can fetch quite the ransom for the aspiring duke these days.
That's like asking why water's wet, birds have to sing at 6 AM, or that the Cubs suck.
Out of curiosity what is the worst thing they've ever done? Because endangering a bunch of service men's lives for the sake of a story seems pretty fucked up.
I believe strongly in the freedom of the press, because it's one of the few defenses common folk have against government malfeasance, but in this case, there was no malfeasance, just "gotcha" sensationalism that harmed security and hampered a young man from serving his country in the most noble way possible. It's probably even less noble than outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. I wish Ed R. Murrow would rise from his grave and crush Drudge under his cigarette butt-stained heel.
I didn't mean that they blew the story, I meant that he went in the first place.
Bah, ransoms are a fool's game, forsooth. King Richard the Lionhearted wallowed in an Austrian confinement for two long years before his beloved mother Eleanor gathered the tithes necessary to free him. And, lo, did that dastard Prince John even offer bribes to Leopold the Fifth to confine him for longer.
And thus, I say "damned be thee" to those who would place another Prince of the Great British Isles in danger of being captured and held ransom by his enemies!
God forbid the man wants to serve his country.
But this looks to me to have been designed to be broken by someone, somewhere, in the media from day one, and it's being milked all the way. These are most likely the shiniest, tidiest combat fatigues in Central Asia, captured by some of the most astonishingly conveniently positioned camera crews in the history of war photography - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7269841.stm. I'd be pretty surprised to find out if he was in any greater danger than picking up a shaving cut at any time during this 'deployment'.
Still, at least the kid's working for a living, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of his relatives. No flies on his grandad in this regard, crazy old racist though he might be - served on the HMS Valiant during the Battles of Crete and of Cape Matapan, mentioned in dispatches for the latter, too.
Depends if Harry has leveled enough to get the appropriate Aura.
They are more useful than regular units because they have extra health.
Well, with his drug taking, binge drinking, fighting, womanising and parading around in Nazi costumes etc, he's probably one of the most experienced soldiers in the British army.
He has access to ways of bettering his country that have a far better ratio of return vs. sensationalism.
Let him get shot at like anyone else who likes to get shot at for a living.
Hopefully the idiot press will get shot in the process.
Yeah they don't generally send out soldiers into the field individually, genius. Your devaluing (to the point of not even being worth mentioning in your wish that the prince get shot in action) the lives of the men in his squad based on the fact that he's wealthy is kind of fucked up.
How reliable is The Sun, though? I know it's not Pravda, but...
If what you read was anything at all like what I wrote then yes it would be fucked up.
Instead you just inserted some weird kind of bias that does not exist.
I do not consider royalty, or any other kind of celebrity, to be special, especially when we're talking celebrity-by-birth, and not by positive action in the world.
They should get no greater consideration than G.I. Joe or G.I. Jane.
The assholes who hound them, however, yeah, they deserve a bullet in their ass for making a living off of being stalkers who jeopardize the lives of others for their stories.
This doesn't mean I desire for the soldiers to get HURT. But they make a living off of getting shot at.
No, you're missing the point. Regardless of whether you think the guy is special, the British do, and that makes him a target. So if terrorist groups know where he is, that exposes his unit to unnecessary danger.
People stalking ANYONE and endangering their lives should be punished for it.
But you don't think it makes good OPSEC sense to pull him out of the theater?
Now that he's a distinct liability, yes.
Hopefully he'll get a chance to redeploy. It's nice seeing someone of his position actually being possibly useful, or at least trying to be.
And hopefully the assholes who revealed him get shrapnel in tender places.