It's not about losing out financially.

J.K. Rowling and the publishers didn't want any leaks before publication date. Millions of people round the world were happy to wait until that date and enjoy the shared experience of the final Harry Potter along with everybody else.

You, however, and people like you, have decided that this is silly, and it is therefore of no consequence if you take the edge off that experience for people who don't think like you do.

You can go on about how difficult it is in today's wired-up world to keep stuff like this secret, and you would be right, but it doesn't change the fact that what you and your ilk have done is deeply selfish.

Why do you feel the need to do this now rather than wait a few more days till people have read the book?

You have just helped disseminate the leaked novel and made it more likely that those people who don't want it spoilt for them are out of luck. It's just not good enough to say 'you have been warned - spoilers ahead'. You have helped screw it up for others just by printing this article.

Is it just an American thing? I want it and I want it NOW and anything that gets in the way of this (like publication dates) is to be deplored and circumvented (and ridiculed as being a rather quaint old custom, according to Farhad Manjoo's recent vapid outpourings).

This is shoddy and irresponsible 'journalism' and I'm surprised and dismayed that Salon has sunk to this.

The US has an incredible gall asking the UN to bail them out now.

But this is a tricky situation because the UN would indeed be the right organization to attempt some sort of nation building: they've done this sort of thing before and are relatively good at it. The US, on the other hand, as clearly demonstrated in Iraq and elsewhere, hasn't got a clue.

The snag is, however, that the security situation in Iraq is so bad that the UN couldn't operate. They had a presence there at the start of the war but had to withdraw after UN workers kept getting killed.

So it's back to the US to provide the muscle to try to straighten out security before the UN could go in.

But, the sheer presence of the US in Iraq seems to be causing much of the trouble.

So we need somebody like the UN in there. But the UN can't because...

So what do we do now?

NATO is surely right in their view that American forces are too heavy-handed in Afghanistan.

The situation there could go either way, but winning hearts and minds is vital at this stage. The occupying forces need to prove that they can make daily life better for ordinary Afghans by making infrastructure improvements and the like, as well helping provide better security. But any good work done by NATO or US troops is promptly undone by a misdirected US air strike or by US troops firing indiscriminately on civilians after they themselves have been attacked.

I'm sure that US forces do make strenuous efforts, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, to strike the right balance between taking the necessary military action and minimizing civilian casualties. But what they think is the 'right' balance is not what most other people think is acceptable.

If up to 30 civilians are thought likely to die in an air strike (that's the anticipated number mind you, not the number of 'accidental' deaths after the event), then this can go ahead without top-level approval. Most Iraqis and Afghans would say that's 30 too many.

Over a 1,000,000 people marched (legally and peacefully) in central London to protest about Britain's looming involvement in the war. That is, nearly 2% of the entire population of Britain were out there.

It was so unprecedented and so many 'ordinary' people participated that it was reported widely and in detail even by those media who would otherwise be inclined to ignore it.

It didn't stop the war but it blew away Blair's contention that the war was widely supported.

Interesting point that non-Americans base their impressions of America on American films and TV. This is obviously not going to give a true picture of America any more than the costume dramas of British TV give a true impression of Britain.

But Americans do seem more immersed in their TV/film versions of reality than most Europeans, so maybe Americans are also more likely to believe their own myths ('Land of the Free', 'Home of the Brave', etc) as disseminated through the media.

And that's one of the problems Europeans (in particular) have with America...

It's clear that this cartoon is about America's 'we know best' attitude to the Middle East (and the rest of the world for that matter) and the contrary reactions this is likely to provoke.

What is a mystery to me is why it was censored. It's clearly not an attack on Muslims and would not be understood as such. So why censor it?

The only possible reason must be, as other letter writers have suggested, that it offends the MSM's prevailing narrative about how the world works and America's role in it.

Sinister.

It's Jeremy Paxman not Jeremy Paxon.

I was sat in a bar in Beijing when I first heard about the 9/11 attacks and my very first thought once the initial shock had subsided was 'Oh God, please don't let America do something really stupid'.

And you know what? That's exactly what George Bush and co proceeded to do.

Meanwhile, the Chinese TV, after a very short news bulletin, went back to the kick-boxing. This was an indication of how much of the rest of the world (and many Americans not blinded by fear and rage) would see the attacks: they were monstrous acts and there had to be a response, but this was not a war for survival and to treat it as such would be disastrously wrong.