An editorial in Le Monde of France, written after the publication of the pictures of abuse and torture in Iraqi jails but before the further disclosure about deaths in custody, argued that these revelations furnished a strong argument against the Bush administration's idea that it should not be bound by irritating international conventions.
Not that it was a question of accusing the coalition forces alone, the paper insisted. The Iraqi opposition, with its blind attacks, could
not be spared blame.
"And torture is, alas, a reprehensible but habitual by-product of conflict and repression. No country has been free of its practice, including France, for those who have forgotten the black hours of the Algerian war."
Le Monde quoted with approval the lesson which the Washington Post drew from the episode, namely that "the laws of war count, even when you are dealing with the worst enemies of America".
How, it asked, could one justify the "sub-contracting" of the interrogation of prisoners to civilian "consultants", mercenaries recruited by specialist agencies?
"It is crucial, for the image as well as the effectiveness of the coalition, that it respects the Geneva conventions. On the ground as well as in that extra-legal zone which is the Guantanamo base."
Last week saw the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's arrival in Downing Street and British commentators were keen to mark the event in their various ways. The Daily Mirror, in an editorial, disputed the notion that Mrs Thatcher
was "some modern Boudicca, fighting for the people she ruled. Her battles were against ordinary people," the paper insisted.
"She undermined the health service and state schools, virtually destroyed public transport and cut services for those in need."
In the Daily Telegraph, Mark Steyn felt the only real problem was that "the Thatcher revolution is uncompleted" and argued that "any honest account" of contemporary Britain must find that most problems now derived from "the un-
Thatcherised sectors, in which the post war, centralised, bureaucratic conventional wisdom still holds".
Richard Littlejohn, in the Sun, thought the Thatcher revolution was not just incomplete but had been virtually rolled up by the fools and knaves who succeeded her: "British industry, freed from union tyranny and high taxation by
Mrs Thatcher, is now being suffocated by regulation from Brussels.
"Under Tony Blair, the unions have made a comeback through EU rules on working time and health and safety. Neil Kinnock seen off
comprehensively by Mrs T now lords it in Europe, thanks to her gutless successor, Johnny Major."
Lada Stipic Niseteo, the Brussels correspondent of the Croatian daily Vjesnik, offered a detached view of enlargement and after from (just) outside the perimeter fence. "There is fatigue," he wrote, "in societies that have invested in their own transformation for the past decade. Some of them have lost the
illusions that pushed them so far for so long, such as the hope that in the Union there will be milk and honey and that subsidies will fall off the tree in every direction.
"Some old alliances will become stronger; some, like the German-French engine, will become permanent. At some point this alliance will seek the support of the British, as it has in the past over defence.
"Poland will play the size card, but much more cautiously, even in a shamefaced way; it has been scolded that it cannot take in money like a
bottomless bag, and it has been pressured to reform its hopeless agriculture. small countries need to join forces, and one presumes they will learn fast the importance of doing so in order to get the most from the EU.
Enlargement is happening because there are many more factors that are pro than contra. The artificial joy of the enlargement fiesta, which does not come from the hearts of the people but from the heads of politicians and public entertainment workshops, will likely be re-examined in the years ahead as it becomes clear that the project has succeeded and that Europe is a better and different place."