Turismo no Iraque de hj...

Os colunistas do Times, Jeremy Clarkson e A A Gill, foram dar um passeio no Iraque...

Veja o resultado nos artigos "Behind Jeremy lines" e "Playing with fire".

Apesar de não serem "proper journalists", como reconhece o Clarkson, há observações bacanas sobre o dia-a-dia das tropas.

Além disso, é interessante ver como um apresentador de programas automobilísticos e um crítico de restaurantes chiques lidam com o medo de ser perseguido por um míssil anti-aéreo pela primeira vez.

Clarkson busca segurança na engenharia...

So what's it like to be shot at? Well, the first time, on our helicopter flight back to Baghdad airport, it was only a rocket-propelled grenade and, frankly, using one of these to bring down a fast-moving helicopter is like using a dart to bring down a hummingbird. So it was no big deal. But the second time was different. This time we were in a Lynx, sitting sideways by an open door over the ruined city of Basra, when someone fired a surface-to-air heat-seeking missile at us. The pilot, known to his men as Lord Flasheart, was chatting away when sensors on the helicopter detected a missile launch and jettisoned a fanned array of flares to provide an even hotter target than the engine's exhaust. It didn't work. The missile was still coming...

Before going to Iraq, Adrian had read a 1925 book, with no pictures in it, called Mesopotamia: The Babylonian and Assyrian Civilisation, and another, by Wilfred Thesiger, called The Marsh Arabs. Neither had really given him much insight into how a Lynx might fare in a Sam attack. So he was the colour of porridge. Me? Rather more wisely, I'd read all of Tom Clancy's work, so I knew we weren't being chased by a fearsome Sam-18. People without shoes would struggle to afford such a thing. More likely we had a 1960s Sam-7 on our tail, and those things are confused by just about everything. So, while a Lynx helicopter may be as old as a Morris Traveller, it is fast and chuckable. I therefore knew we'd get away.

Gill prefere terceirizar a lógica e busca confiança na competência do piloto...

We hitch a lift in a Lynx, the sports car of military helicopters: small, agile and nippy. My feet poke out into the void. We're only held in place by a beefed-up car seat belt. Jeremy wraps the spare webbing round his hand. Here is another difference in the way we deal with fear. He likes to know hardware stuff, facts, figures, statistics. He wants muzzle velocity and metal thickness. His world is a series of engineering problems, probabilities and solutions. Nuts and bolts are his security bunny. There isn't a metaphysical cloud on his horizon. It's like being strapped in next to a why-ing four-year-old who's taken over the body of old man Steptoe.

On the other hand, I don't care a jot for any of that. It's boring and bogus. The world isn't spun by cogs, it's turned by people. I make my judgment by sizing up the pilot, the driver, the guide. If you decide to trust him, then keep up and shut up. I'd have followed the Lynx's captain any way they fancied. The chap in charge of helicopters was a marvellously urbane floppy blond Sloane from the army air corps.

A dupla ainda apostou corrida de tanque, atirou de AK-47, visitou os Marsh Arabs e conviveu com as tropas...

Now it's an American army canteen, so, as you can imagine, security is tight. As tight as it was when they'd checked our car in Kuwait. God, they were useless. I could have hidden an elephant in there and they wouldn't have found it. All that stood between me and my lunch in Baghdad was an adenoidal teenager who, in an irritating nasal whine, said I didn't have a pass. And then failed to do anything about it.

Over lunch à€” a burger, surprisingly, followed by two buckets of ice cream à€” someone dropped a metal tray. I heard the crash and thought: "Oh, someone's dropped a tray." But the 400 soldiers in there whipped round like Saddam himself had just burst into the room with an atomic bomb. They were a nervy bunch, and I can't say I blame them. Not when the only thing that stands between them and half a million very angry locals is Kevin the Teenager.

Além dos artigos, há uns videos da dupla no Iraque no site do Sunday Times.

Nada muito profundo, mas são textos divertidos.