Lions Led by Donkeys
Pilots back war on Mugabe not Iraq, says poll

30^th August 2002

Most of Britain's front-line RAF and Royal Navy pilots would rather fight to depose Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's land-grabbing president, than wage America's war for regime change in Iraq, an unofficial website poll suggests.

It showed that 87.7% of the 122 military fliers who voted opted for "ending ethnic genocide by starvation" in Zimbabwe before tackling Saddam Hussein.

The UK armed forces currently have about 250 combat-ready jet pilots, with another 90 to 100 in training.

The poll was carried out on the Professional Pilots' Rumour Network, a site with over 70 forums dedicated to aviation topics and 53,000 registered members.

The military aircrew forum on the website, which has been running since 1995, was used recently to enlist the support of MPs and help organise the campaign to clear the names of the two RAF Chinook pilots blamed by senior officers for the 1994 crash on the Mull of Kintyre which wiped out most of Northern Ireland's senior intelligence officers.

It also became a major location for informed debate on the Ministry of Defence's controversial decision to axe the two remaining Sea Harrier squadrons, a move which will leave British naval task forces without fighter cover until 2015.

Because the site is monitored by the MoD, pilots posting comments use nicknames like "Flygunz", "Ark Royal", "Captain Sand Dune" and "Topgun" to conceal their identities. Serving officers are barred from commenting publicly on issues involving government policy and can be disciplined for speaking out without permission.

A series of lively debates on Mr Mugabe's dispossession of white farmers led to the unofficial poll of the pilots who would have to play a leading role in any UK contribution to a campaign against Saddam Hussein.

One posting read: "Call me cynical, but if Mugabe were white and trying to commit genocide against black people, we would be half way to Africa right now.

"The six million who now face starvation because of his policy are all in electoral districts which voted against him."

An MoD source said yesterday: "Members of the armed services do not formulate government policy. They are there to carry it out. Straw polls may or may not reflect feeling within the forces, but are irrelevant in the wider context."

Ian Bruce