Feedback | 26 July 2003

Comment on No flies on Bush by Mark Steyn (19/07/2003)

I read Mark Steyn’s article on the harmlessness of the lies told by the USA and the UK on the world stage and tried to be reassured by his joviality. After all, I thought, what’s a few thousand dead people when, as your poll showed, the people ‘liberated’ by us, know that we are really after their oil. Who else is going to notice a few lies (about Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaida, promises that Iraqi oil money is controlled by Iraqis and the creation of democracy (shouldn’t this happen before the country is privatised?) except mad anti-war activists and world public opinion?
Huw Peach

I see nothing clever in what Mark Steyn calls Bush’s flypaper strategy of attracting Islamonutters into Iraq to be picked off by the United States forces and thereby diverted from a more deadly activity like blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge. At present there are some 150,000 American troops in Iraq, many of them suffering from low morale and wanting to go home. If they are to be rotated, a further 150,000 will have to be sent out and the United States will find the bulk of its military might pinned down in a region where the hostility of the locals is rapidly growing. As I write, a further two American soldiers have been killed and at this rate the body bags will amount to scores by the time the Bush electoral campaign gets into full swing. Meanwhile there is nothing to prevent acts of terrorism against the Great Satan elsewhere in the world. There is also the financial cost that will run into billions, something that will not please American voters. I suggest Mark Steyn learn the lesson of American military involvement in Vietnam which proved so costly in terms of lives and cash.