THERE is a considerable and understandable furore surrounding the use and testing of depleted uranium shells. They’re radioactive, you see, and when they explode and our lads then pass through the area they’ve exploded in they get sick. Which isn’t right. Obviously, such compassion doesn’t extend to the people our lads are firing the shells at , whose death by explosion, radiation poison or even from trying to run away and tripping and hitting their head on a rock is in every way desirable and fair. And it is. I understand the logic. I’m just saying, that’s all.

 There was a similar scenario during the Gulf War, when the Allies employed the use of carpet bombing from a great height not only to blow the evil Iraqis up, but to bury alive those not exploded into little bits, under thousands of tonnes of sand thrown up by the bombing. And there was an outcry. Cos this wasn’t fair. Or humane. As if the act of killing them would otherwise have been acceptable - millions of individual pistols-at-dawn duels taking place, or painless and swift poisons being surreptitiously added to countless cups of morning tea. After all, we’re not murderers, just because we kill people.