Doug believes that in order to get his troops back it is justified for a soldier to kill unarmed civilian prisoners.

I take it this doesn't just apply to American soldiers overseas, and that it would have been equally valid for British soldiers in the American Revolution, or soldiers on both sides in the American Civil War.

In other words, he'd be applying the Golden Rule - consenting in principle to the killing of his own family in similar circumstances.

I think, spaw, it may have been me that mgarvey was criticising for the Nazi linkage. What I was saying was meant to be the opposite really - saying that I don't believe that soldiers in most wars, including the Vietnam War, do turn into Nazi-style death squad members, and that Calley and Co, who did, were, I believe and hope, very much the exception.

Dresden was a major war-crime, and I look forward to the setting up of an effective international war-crimes tribunal that will mean that the people responsible for that kind of thing - and I don't mean the bomber crews - will no longer be able to rely on their own country turning a blind eye to atrocities carried out on its own behalf.