When I heard US President Donald Trump utter the words "mission accomplished" after the air strikes in Syria, when more than 100 missiles had been launched to destroy a few buildings, I had a flashback to May 1 2003, when the then US president, George W Bush, had landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and gave a speech about how well the attack on Iraq had gone. In the background was a huge banner bearing the same words: "Mission accomplished". Well, 15 years later we can see the mess the Americans left in Iraq, and the suffering of the people living there. It is the same scenario with each US administration — Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya … the hypocrisy of the US, when all it is doing is stirring the pot around the world, causing havoc and walking away. The world has not forgotten the use by the US of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the napalm attacks on civilians, or the picture of the child running naked down the road with her skin peeling off. JM Bouvier Bryanston
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