Our boys and girls
Natasha Walter provides a refreshing counter to all the ‘back our brave boys’ tripe being spouted by the mainstream media, Don’t idealise the soldiers fighting this unjust war:
It is all very well to hear about how vulnerable and heroic our troops are, but we should not forget that the truly vulnerable people are not the healthy young men who chose to join one of the best-equipped armies in the world, but ordinary Iraqi people who did not choose to be caught, utterly defenceless, between a tyrant and a destructive army.
These soldiers do indeed face a scary task, which includes the threat of chemical and biological weapons. But since only 20 British soldiers were killed in the actual course of the last Gulf War — most of those by US friendly fire — and Iraqi military power is said to be so much weakened since then, let’s be honest and remind ourselves that the horror that British soldiers are most likely to confront in the next few weeks is not that of dying in an unnecessary war, but of killing in an unnecessary war.
With a tragic irony, as I type, the Beeb has just reported that 4 British and 12 US personnel — updated: now reportedly 8 british and 4 US — have been killed in an accidental helicopter crash in Kuwait. More blood on the hands of Bush and Blair.
- Who do you think you are kidding Mr Blair
- Fear and loving in Las Vegas
