Words of Steele

See how veteran Guardian journalist Jonathan Steele thinks. Sample 1 (all emphases in these excerpts added by me):

Thanks to Zarqawi and various small groups of local Islamists whom he has managed to inspire, all non-Arabs in Iraq have become potential targets. No distinction is made between those who take jobs with the occupation, and journalists, UN employees and aid workers, who are neutral or, in many cases, severe critics of US and British policy.

In Gaza and the West Bank, for all the chaos and confusion of authority caused by 37 years of Israeli occupation, Palestinian leaders and Palestinian society remain far-sighted, civic-minded, and secular enough to keep out these kinds of Islamist soldiers of fortune. Al-Qaida and its followers are unknown in Palestine. Foreign aid workers and western journalists have never been kidnapped. They are more likely to be killed by the Israeli army than by gunmen on the Palestinian side.

You definitely shouldn't kill critics of US and British policy, foreign aid workers and Western journalists. Well, indeed not. I did think, though, that the laws of war afforded a wider range of protections - including to children on the bus on their way to school. Sample 2:

Suddenly we hear his [Saddam Hussein's] trial may take place next month. This will be the famous "October surprise". Bush will use the spotlight on Saddam as a way of trying to justify the war on Iraq and put John Kerry on the defensive.

Unthinkable. That one might try to justify a war for having got rid of a man (and a regime) like that.