Voice of the UK Mirror

simon_partridge

I'm not sure what the Mirror is trying to achieve with their current war stance, and I bet it's more a commercial exercise than an altruistic one (especially in their constant battle with the UK Sun), but a lot of what they say here seems to make sense.



LIES WILL NOT DISGUISE UGLY FACE OF WAR

The war has produced many heart-breaking images.

But surely none are sadder than those of 18-year-old British soldier Kelan Turrington, on our front page today - and Iraqi boy Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost both his arms to a bomb.

Both are victims of this conflict, and both deserve our sorrow and sympathy today.

Some people have tried to brand the Mirror "unpatriotic" and "anti-troops" because we refused to back the political decision to wage war on Iraq.

Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper has predictably even sent out leaflets urging our readers to stop buying the Mirror for "letting down" our troops. A more sickeningly commercial exercise it is hard to imagine.

This is the same repulsive newspaper that didn't cover the market bomb that killed 55 Iraqi civilians because it wasn't interested.

The same paper that every day tells its readers of new WMD "smoking guns" under headlines such as PROOF - which turn out to be nothing - of uprisings that hadn't happened, of executions that were not executions.

Each issue, it publishes more lies, twists more facts and treats the war as an ever more hideous entertainment game to be enjoyed at home.

But what can you expect from a publication that thought it was right to attack Liverpool fans days after the Hillsborough disaster?

This war is not a game - it is deadly serious. And there is no contradiction in being anti a war that was unsupported by the United Nations but being totally behind the servicemen and women who have to carry out their government's orders.

Most of the country feels that way.

Everyone hates Saddam. He's an evil man. But the problems we are now creating by attacking Iraq will come back to haunt us for years.

The Mirror has always supported our armed forces, and always will. There is no finer, braver, more professional military group of men and women in the world.

We weep and pray for the families of men like Kelan Turrington, who always wanted to be a soldier, always served his county with pride and gave his life so courageously in battle.

But unlike those ignorant fools who sneer at the Mirror, we also weep and pray for children like Ali and their families.

He says he will kill himself if he doesn't get new arms soon. Can any parent imagine a worse horror than seeing their son in that state?

Our message to our troops is: Finish your job, do so with pride and honour and with our unequivocal support.

Our message to the Iraqi civilians is: We are thinking of you as you bury your dead, tend your wounded and prepare for the uncertain future that lies ahead.

And our message to The Sun is: Mirror readers don't read your paper because you are a lying, nasty little rag which thinks that this war's all a bit of a laugh.

Tell that to the families of Kelan Turrington and Ali Ismaeel Abbas.


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