For starters, how about this (and forgive me if it seems a bit 'Spartist': We have seen the continuation of the school of thought, introduced by a supine news aristocracy and gratefully supported by various governments bowing to the constant need to assuage public opinion, that makes it a taboo to ever mention the strategic and economic reasons for war - or even to admit that any may exist.

Instead, the overriding flavour of any news report must reduce the conflict to the level of a woman's weekly human interest piece, tottering drunkenly from breathless, almost Dickens-esque descriptions of maimed children to dry transcripts of the statements on a particular morning's operation from the army spokesman.

How, I ask, does any of this give us the breadth of understanding that we need to deal with it on the level with which it deserves? Do we need to wait 100 years for a hysterically bloodthirsty, yet refreshingly hypocrisy-free paperback on the issue? Something like this, perhaps: http://tinyurl.com/dgzcdg