It was a telephone call I had with him, in which he laughed at the suggestion that 500 people had been killed, and accused me of making it up.  Steve Pound MP is a particularly vile man, well-known as a prominent back-bench Blairite.

Is it legal to overfly Fallujah in helicopters, firebombing the houses so that the civilian population runs out into the streets - and then machine-gunning them when they do?   Then describing the action as a "regrettable necessity".

Is waterboarding legal?  Are CIA secret torture-flights legal? 

We've killed 500,000 people - and we're worrying about a dog-turd?

Oh puhleaze.

Which has achieved... what?

Much as I respect your advocacy, George, it has to be said that the anti-war movement has achieved diddly-squat.  British Forces remain in Iraq (even after the PM claimed he was withdrawing them).  There is no sign of any Inquiry into how the war was incepted and on what legal basis - nor do I believe there will ever be one. 

I would say what Britain lacks is a Von Stauffenberg, personally.  And no, I am not joking.

I hope I won't be receiving a parcel from you, Reiner, but individual acts whether of pooposting or terrorism are almost without exception counterproductive in the pursuit of political objectives, and if your criterion for disdaining the anti-war movement is its failure to stop the war I wonder how you conceive that a better job can be done by canine excreta. It may be a more eloquent expression of your anger, but no large-scale change has ever been brought about in this way: it's an expression of defeat more than anything else.

SwanKnight, Frederick Forsyth's political views make Boris Johnson look completely sane and balanced!

I'm not aware of any situation in which dog poo has changed the course of history (other than when it builds up, causing all sorts of pollutants to gather in the air, causing disease and even sometimes death), but as far as terrorism is concerned, I'm not sure - it depends how one defines it, really. Would the current situation in Northern Ireland (whatever one thinks of it) have developed in the same way without the history of both Loyalist and Republican terrorism? Maybe the bombings in Madrid played a part in 'bringing the war home' and persuading Spanish voters to vote out Aznar? And guerilla movements in various parts of the world (including, arguably, Afghanistan and Vietnam) could be classified as 'terrorists' and played a part in putting pressure on occupying armies to leave those countries? I'm really not sure.

That said, in the current political climate, I reckon Von Stauffenberg style assassinations (assuming they were successful, as Von Stauffenberg's was not) might be as likely to prepare the ground for even more reactionary politicians than are in power at the moment, as part of a backlash.

Reiner, the anti-war movement has done more than burn Bolivian candles and cook lentil dips - it managed to organise the largest demonstration in London for many years, and has been responsible for disseminating plenty of information about the reality of the war in Iraq, thus better informing the people of the truth behind the lies and propaganda. What else would you suggest they should have done (other than perhaps sending 2 million dog poos in the post)?

The only way something might change would be if there was civil war in Britain, and blood ran down Whitehall. (The blood of politicians that is). Otherwise we will continue to be f***** by the war criminals.