On 27 September, Britain apparently narrowly escaped a major terrorist attack. Five men had been arrested close to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, three suspicious white vans were being examined by bomb disposal experts, residents were evacuated and a “major incident” declared.
Then, almost immediately, the story began to grow. RAF Fairford is not simply a British airbase; it is used by the US Air Force and its bombers to carry out illegal and murderous attacks on the Iranian people, on children. That fact rapidly became central to the reporting.
The Times told its readers about a “foiled bomb plot” and reported that police were investigating a “possible Iran link”. Another Times analysis described a “suspected car bomb” and helpfully explained that Iranian involvement would represent a “major escalation”.
Across the other side of the world, Australians were essentially receiving the same story. The Age carried the Reuters report of the “major incident”, which immediately reminded readers that Britain had authorised American bombers at Fairford to attack Iranian targets and that Iran had previously warned that bases being used to attack it could themselves become legitimate targets.
The message had been planted. Iran. Terrorism. Bombs. British civilians in danger. There was just one small problem. There were no bombs. But that point is moot – the objective of the British state was served – everyone is left with the impression that Iranians were indirectly attacking us on British soil.
By 29 September, The Times was reporting that the five men had been released on bail “after no explosives found”. All five were British nationals in their twenties. No Iranian connection had been established publicly. Indeed, counter terrorism policing said investigators were keeping an “open mind” about the geopolitical context and considering a number of possibilities.
Even more interestingly, Reuters subsequently reported that the arrests were not intelligence-led. They apparently followed a call from a local farmer who saw vans and masked men close to the base. Yet by then the propaganda had done its work.
Donald Trump with his usual eloquence announced that the men had intended to do “big damage”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further, declaring that the incident “clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor”, while providing no evidence publicly to support the assertion. British defence minister Wes Streeting duly reminded the population that “Iran and their proxies wish to do us harm”.
This is not how journalism is supposed to work. Journalism establishes facts and then reports them. Propaganda begins with the message that needs communicating and assembles facts, suspicions, anonymous briefings and speculation around it. And the message here could hardly be clearer. Iran threatens Britain. Iranian proxies could be operating amongst us. Our military installations are threatened. Our communities are threatened. Therefore we need greater security, greater military preparedness and, inevitably, greater expenditure on the machinery of war.
Whether the strange events outside Fairford eventually prove to have involved criminal activity, terrorism or something altogether more mundane remains to be established. But workers should ask another question. Who created the danger at Fairford in the first place? People living around Fairford did not collectively decide that their quiet corner of Gloucestershire should become a staging post for British-backed, American military operations thousands of miles away. Yet US bombers have operated from the base against Iran and the people of Palestine. RAF Fairford has consequently become part of the infrastructure of war.
The British state places a military installation used in attacks upon another country amongst British communities and then tells those communities they must fear retaliation from the country being attacked. Apparently, the terrorists are those who might attack the bombers whilst our politicians, our ruling class, are the people actually sending the bombers to drop their payloads on another country. Yet they should remain the defenders of peace and democracy.
There is another question worth asking. When an incident so perfectly reinforces the political message required by governments preparing us for expanding war, why should we simply accept their version? History gives us every reason to scrutinise the narratives of states engaged in war, particularly when speculation is being presented long before evidence.
What we can see is how useful Fairford became almost instantaneously. Before anyone knew what was inside those vans, the public was hearing about Iran. Before an Iranian connection had been demonstrated, politicians and newspapers were discussing Iranian proxies. Before explosives had even been found – and apparently none were – Britain had experienced a “bomb plot”.
And this process did not stop at Britain’s borders. The same framing travelled through the international media, including Australia, reproducing for workers thousands of miles away the same association: Iran, terrorism, danger, war.
That is how propaganda works most effectively. It does not necessarily require every sentence to be false. It selects, associates, repeats and amplifies until an interpretation begins to feel like an established fact. Perhaps further evidence will emerge about Fairford. If it does, it should be judged on that evidence.
Until then, we might remember something much simpler. There definitely are armed forces operating from RAF Fairford. There definitely are weapons there. There definitely are aircraft capable of delivering enormous quantities of explosives. And there definitely is a foreign military using British soil to wage war. Curiously, those are never the terrorists we are being encouraged to fear.
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