We know that soldiers are under incredible stress and are getting shot at and blown up almost daily, and we know that bad things happen in war. But it is not inevitable: most soldiers DON'T indiscriminately shoot up innocent civilians, so that suggests to me that those that do should be punished and, as far as I'm aware, almost none have.

It is not just one of those regrettable little incidents that happen in war when a load of innocent civilians get blown away, it is a tragedy. Hearts and minds? Forget it. After this has happened a few times, you've lost the support of the locals and the war has just become a damn sight harder to win.

Here are just a few random examples from the UK press from 30 seconds' Googling. Every one was a nail in the coffin of US hopes in Iraq:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1007694,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1021592,00.html

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1037081,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/15/wirq15.xml.

If the US incarcerates and tortures people to death - I don't care who they are or what they've done - then that is indefensible and shameful.

That is NOT to say Islamic terrorists beheading Americans is somehow right. It is vile and barbaric. And, no, America did not cause these atrocities but it surely made them more likely - why did these murderers dress their victims in orange jump suits before executing them?

I don't have much sympathy for Peter Kurth. He was treated harshly but he'd dug himself a hole and just kept on digging and digging - serial abuse of flight attendants, passport problems, the thing with the "bustle", etc, etc. And all this on a plane at a time of heightened security paranoia. I don't like this paranoia any more than any body else but that's the reality of it and you're a fool if you ignore it.

He was unlucky to end up in Wormwood Scrubs - a real dump, and recently condemned by the Prison Inspectorate - at a time of crisis for UK prisons. The British government reacted to the (generally unfounded) fears of rising crime in this time of increased tensions, mainly whipped up by the tabloid press, by instructing judges to lock more people up rather than impose non-custodial sentences like community service.

And what do you know? The prisons are full to bursting and the government say they are surprised. Britain now locks up a greater percemtage of its population than any other European country (although not as many as the US).

And a special award (IMHO) goes to...(fumble, fumble, fumble)... Sidney Blumenthal, Gary Kamiya, Joe Conason, Andrew O'Hehir, Glenn Geenwald.

And the pie in the face goes to.... Camille Paglia.

Horne says he doesn't understand why Tony Blair wanted war with Iraq - I don't either, and neither do millions of other Brits.

But Horne is not credible when he says that his initial support for war was because he was 'misled by the intelligence'. It was obvious from the outset that Blair wanted war, regardless of what the (very weak) intelligence was saying. You could see it in his very body language, his careful evasions and circumlocutions when questioned about the possibility of war: he was going to war with his mate George and nothing was going to stop him.

And I don't think it's true to say that the British tail wagged the American dog: if Britain had said 'no way' to war, it would have isolated the US but would it have stopped the war? I don't think so.

Britain and America had different motivations for this war: America had its own murky reasons and Britain had the mythical 'special relationship' and the possibility of some sort of quid quo pro. But, at the core of this, is the missionary zeal shared by both Bush and Blair. You could see it in the glint in their eyes, their unresponsiveness to the facts (or lack of them) on the ground, the sense of their being driven by a 'higher calling'.

Call me cynical, but in my opinion no politician driven by this sort of faith should be in office.

Apparently we Brits are "very anti-semitic" and have "no end of layered bigotries", but I can tell you that there is nothing sinister about the term 'Planet Zog'. If you're from Planet Zog it just means you're totally out of touch with the norms of earthly behaviour, as if visiting from some hypothetical Planet Zog, the sort of alien-sounding name invented by 1950's science-fiction writers.

And you don't have to be a raving monarchist to be irritated by Bush behaving like an arse to a visiting head of state, out-dated relic though you might consider the Queen to be.

Even if you think the British royal family are a bunch of in-bred anachronisms, the Queen is a visiting head of state and has every right to expect to be treated courteously and with respect.

If the roles were reversed, Bush would quite rightly expect to be treated by his British hosts with all the respect due to a President of the United States, regardless of the fact that, to put it mildly, he's not well-liked in the UK.