In an apparent attempt to free two Britih undercover commandos held in a Basra jail (for allegedly shooting a couple of Iraqi policemen), British forces crash into the jail with tanks, also freeing 150 Iraqi prisoners.
If there one thing in Iraq that we don't want, it is for the coalition to alienate those who are most likely to support us. What idiot decided to use tanks to stage a jailbreak for two people accused of being cop-killers?
At Lunaville, there was a post on this. Reading the comments, someone going by the name of ""Superpower" = EMPIRE" points out that this suggests that the British forces in Basra do not have a lot of influence with the civil authorities.
This also contradicts an earlier "War Nerd" column (I'll try to find it later), where Gary Brecher talked about how savvy the Brits were at not offending the locals too much (and thus being more efficient imperialists than we were).
I suppose it is nice to know that there are things that hold constant across space and time, even if one of those things is human stupidity.
That is all.
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