Airstrip One

Why the Yanks should never run an Empire

Excuse me for getting into armchair strategist mode, but didn't the Americans cock up with this mess of a rain on Uday and the other Son of Saddam?

To read the various adopted Americans on places like Samizdata and England's (sic) Sword it was a triumph. Now two of the most powerful ex-Baathists are no longer around to be interrogated and used as captive leaders to surrender at least part of their forces (think of Japan, 1945). The Yanks may be excellent at looking after their own gardens, but as rulers of foreign lands they are, to use a Yankicism, lame.

And a fourteen year old boy's killed as well, so any Arab who sees us celebrating the death of these two gangsters thinks that we're also celebrating the death of a kid. Of course that's not what we mean but it is fairly easy to foresee how some demented Muslim will see it "ah the great Satan loves killing children".

The hope that the leaderless resistance in Iraq will in fairly short order die down when the "leaders" have gone seems sadly misplaced (hopefully I'm wrong).

Portraying this bungled arrest as a great victory is a sign of desperation. Two criminal suspects, and a fourteen year old boy, were shot after a tipoff when they could have been quite damaging if caught alive. This is a victory? God help us when they have a defeat!