As a neutral, I felt sorry for Chelsea to lose like that. If either side had scored the winning goal in extra time, most people (well, neutrals anyway) would have accepted it as a fair result.

People agonize over this all the time, but it just doesn't seem right to end a major competition like this with a penalty shoot-out. I understand the arguments in favour of it and I sort of agree with them but, dammit, it just doesn't feel right.

I'm not quite sure why that is but maybe it's because it goes against the nature of the game - it switches from being a team game to a sudden-death personal contest. In normal play, even if a penalty is missed, or some other bad mistake is made, there is the chance of redemption later.

But not for poor John Terry. I'm not so sure he'll have forgotten it by breakfast - the fans certainly won't. They'll forgive it but they won't forget it.

Under Saddam, tyrant though he was, Iraq functioned. Under de facto American rule and a helpless Iraqi government, it does not. Most Iraqis will tell you life under Saddam was better than it is now.

They think that America broke Iraq so should fix it. They badly need American help, but at the same time want them out.

So how do you square that circle? I've no idea. It's a crime that Iraq was ever allowed to reach this impossible situation.

As a non-American, what stood out most for me was that Reagan was such an idiot.

It's easy to forget this now, what with George W. Bush being an even bigger idiot, but it was quite shocking at the time to see such a mentally deficient person in charge of the world's most powerful country (and its vast nuclear arsenal). In my lifetime, certainly, whatever else American presidents were, they weren't stupid.

And Reagan winning the Cold War? That's not how it looked from over here. He had the sense to go along with it but it was the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, the glasnost and perestroika, that brought about the fall of communism.

I'd like to echo MacK. The attitude of the DHS is damaging America.

I know that it is common for EU citizens to avoid travelling to, or through, America because of all the hassle they encounter from rude and aggressive American officials. You don't get this in other 'western' countries; when, for example, entering Australia or New Zealand as a non-resident, the process can be long but is efficient and polite.

A New Zealand friend of mine occasionally travels to the Yukon to visit her son and in the US has to endure the DHS nightmare even though she's just getting off one plane and on to another. To her great relief there is now a direct flight from New Zealand to Vancouver - one more person avoiding the US at all costs.

It's tempting to see this as symptomatic of a general coarsening of American attitudes to the rest of the world; an attempt to bolt the doors and bar the windows to keep out undesirables while the US withdraws into itself. This can't be the way to go.

I'm not American so it's not my fight, but somebody tell me why this is important? Why is it such a big deal that somebody marginally associated with Obama holds a few dodgy views?

I can understand that the mainstream/right-wing (same thing) media would pounce on this while ignoring the dubious associates of the likes of John McCain, but why does Salon follow suit?

I can also understand that because it's big news in the mainstream media - even though it shouldn't be - Salon would feel bound to pass comment, but the comment should be, a la Glenn Greenwald, about the ineffable vacuity of much of the media, not an echo of their position.

It's good to see Andrew O'Hehir treating Abu Ghraib as he does - with horror, disgust and bewilderment - when elsewhere in America it has pretty much dropped out of the national conversation. The seven bad apples have been identified and punished, so end of story, move on.

Well that should NOT be the end of the story. There is a systemic malaise at work here that needs to be exposed; from the soldiers themselves who seem to take no personal responsibility for what they did, to the shadowy CIA operatives and others who abused, tortured and murdered their captives in the name of America, and those at the top like Bush and Cheney who willed it all to happen.

Those who think America is better than this, like Errol Morris and Andrew O'Hehir, do us all a service by trying to stop this outrage dropping out of sight in the face of public discomfort and boredom.

I've read 'Resistance' and it's excellent.

It's entirely believable that occupiers and occupied eventually come to an uneasy accommodation. Wars are mostly fought by ordinary people who, given the choice, would rather co-operate than kill each other.

Despite the horrors of war, when it's all over (or nearly all over) some sort of ordinary life must go on, and human relationships continue. Sheers captures all this with sensitivity and believability.

You might not speak for the world but I for one agree with you a million thousand percent.