From a piece by Terry Waite, who was confined as a hostage in Lebanon for five years, published in The Guardian last week:

"I can recognise the conditions that prisoners are being kept in at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay because I have been there. Not to Cuba's Camp X-Ray, but to the darkened cell in Beirut that I occupied for five years.

I was chained to a wall by my hands and feet; beaten on the soles of my feet with cable; denied all my human rights, and contact with my family for five years, and given no access to the outside world. Because I was kept in very similar conditions, I am appalled at the way we - countries that call ourselves civilised - are treating these captives. Is this justice or revenge?"

The rest of it is here. This, please note,is not a man with any reson for feeling any sympathy towards terrorists or terrorism.

And the point about treatment of German prisoners of war, Macleod, wasn't about pampering. I am sure they were not pampered, prisoners very rarely are (apart from generals, who tend to be treated as cronies by other generals).

It was about the determination to behave in a civilised and humane manner no matter what the provocation - because, among other things, that is the best hope there is that other people may do the same when the boot is on the other foot. For example when a bomber pilot is captured by people who have been bombed.