There can be little doubt that the ubiquitous Mr Rumsfeld has just cause to be upset at the recent turn of events. Single-handedly he will probably be responsible for his friend Mr Bush not getting re-elected, to say nothing about creating a situation in Iraq in which will prove increasingly impossible to un-entangle US and UK forces without a real risk of a full scale civil war.

Not that it wouldn't be an attractive prospect to see the back of the Secretary of Defence, particularly one whose incompetent control of the forces under his command has led directly to the present debacle, but if he goes, so does Mr Bush, and for all his faults, and they are many, he has, unlike so many other world leaders, come up to scratch in the fight against terrorism. Without him it is absolutely certain that the West would not have faced up to the real threat posed by Al Quada and its fanatics. Make no mistake, the conflict was going to happen long before 9/11, but that act and America's reaction to it, have brought it slap bang into centre stage.

There are those who argue that by its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and by its apparently uncritical support of Israel, that America has accelerated the cause of fanatical islamic terrorism, and that doing nothing, or very little, would have avoided the problem. This is arrant nonsense of the worst kind. Bin Laden and his supporters had cause enough and supporters enough already embedded in the western democracies and it was only a matter of time before they went into action. We might find it uncomfortable, but while we "slept", Bin Laden's minions were actively recruiting around us, apparently unhindered by any thought of conscience.

So at least Mr Rumsfeld is to be congratulated for fighting back, but Iraq and Afghanistan, 9/11, Bali, Madrid and all the others are merely the overture to the grand and tragic opera which will unfold over the next few decades. Make no mistake, it won't go away, and whatever our liberal consciences might or might not feel about it, we are at war, and it is a war, not against the forces of fanatical islam, but as usual, against those forces which degrade the human spirit and demonize our fellow human beings of whatever faith, in whatever country. That is why the pictures from Baghdad are so shocking and that is why Rumsfeld will be a political casualty, along I am afraid, with many others in the current US military and political administration.

In the meantime, someone spotted the following written on the side of a US Marine vehicle in Baghdad: "Fighting for Peace is like screwing for virginity". How apt.