When the invasion began, the British public was called upon to 'support' troops sent illegally and undemocratically to kill people with whom we had no quarrel. 'The ultimate test of our professionalism' is how Commander McKendrick describes an unprovoked attack on a nation with no submarines, no navy and no air force, and now with no clean water and no electricity and, in many hospitals, no anaesthetic with which to amputate small limbs shredded by shrapnel. I have seen elsewhere how this is done, with a gag in the patient's mouth.

Two increasing themes which appear to dominate our listening, reading and watching lives are propaganda and 'national security', or manufactured war.

Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days. When you have someone like Cheney who talks about "endless war" or war that might last fifty years, he could be Big Brother. You have Bush incessantly going on about the evil ones.

What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed.

The British Labour Party has always had a very strong "Atlanticist component," with an obsequiousness to American policies, and Blair represents this wing. He's clearly obsessed with Iraq. He has to be because the overwhelming majority of the people of Britain oppose a military action.

The attack on Iraq has been long planned. There just hasn't been an excuse for it. Since George H.W. Bush didn't unseat Saddam in 1991, there's been a longing among the extreme right in the United States to finish the job. The war on terrorism has given them that opportunity. Even though the logic is convoluted and fraudulent, it appears they are going to go ahead and finish the job.

I'm absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language.