Next, a quote from a talking head on BBC Radio 4 this morning:

"You see the painstaking care the archaeologists use when they dig up these relics and now there is all this bombing. It's the history being destroyed, not just the people. The history is being shot at—and for what?"

How about the removal of a murderous fascist dictator? "Okay, Mohammed, John here is going to ask you a few more questions so we can process your asylum request, but, before he does: artefacts or liberation? Wow. Whaddya know? John, put another one down for ‘liberation’".

Incidentally, not that I think the latter is important, but the coalition are not only going to amazing lengths to avoid "destroying the people" of Iraq, they are doing their best to avoid trashing historical sites. They are taking so much care in this that Saddam's forces are exploiting it and hiding arms in them.

Of course, Saddam's been trashing his country's "heritage" for ages, but I can't remember hearing a BBC report about that recently…