John Simpson - arsehole emeritus

Who can forget the countless times the BBC replayed the bombing of the mixed Afghan-US Special Forces column to which Simpson was attached? Complete with splash of blood on the lens? With Simpson hinting that maybe it was part of a concerted attack on the press by the Americans?

Admiral Dingbat, we have a sighting of Bin Laden in the open! Shall I divert the F-14s?
No, no, nothing is more important than silencing the awesome voice of John Simpson!

Who can forget him waddling into the Afghan capital with his Kevlar vest straining to contain his bulging gut, while proclaiming himself  "the first man in Kabul"?

So now we have the valedictory on the US occupation of Iraq by Field Marshal Simpson, riding serenely over the complete contempt in which he is held by any soldier who has ever had to deal with him.

The US forces, contrary to all the basic rules of counter-insurgency, allowed the enemy to attack "Route Irish", the main road between Baghdad airport and the Green Zone, as and when it chose. British soldiers, used to Northern Ireland, pointed out again and again that occasional nervous sorties in armoured vehicles were not the same as taking control of it. Their American counterparts took no notice, and the situation grew worse.

Given that the British were beaten like a cheap rug in Iraq, perhaps one might conclude that experience of a low intensity war in Northern Ireland was not all that useful in the face of a full-blown insurgency.

Vast numbers of people have died, the overwhelming majority of them Iraqi. Unthinkably large amounts of money have been spent here, and yet Iraq has slipped far down the world's rich list. 

Has the United States benefited? It is hard to see how.

As the British learned in the Boer War, and Russia learned by invading Afghanistan, great military powers run big risks by putting their strength to the test against weak-seeming opponents.

America seems to have shrunk as a direct result of its imperial adventure in Iraq. It will have to work very hard to persuade the rest of the world that it is strong again.

Yup. It's the BBC house line of America bashing, the cringing sneer of the gamma male.

John Simpson - he puts the fat in fatuous.

P.S. Simon Jenkins' piece in the Guardian today reiterates his old lib-lefty obsession with those eeevul arms manufacturers who cause wars. Been there, pissed on him before. Here he adds a sub-wank about the UN:

All the UN's pomp cannot stop such incidents running amok. The UN is powerless in the face of glory-seeking statesmen, goaded by military-industrial interests of unprecedented potency. We might think that after history's mightiest lesson book – the 20th century – the west would be proof against repeating such idiocy. Yet when challenged to show prudence and maturity in response to terror, it plays the terrorist's game. It exploits the politics of fear.