It's nice to have a reliable voice to go to in times like these, one that's erudite and articulate, with historical perspective and knowledge of the actual issues (even if he is bombastic at times).

Some excerpts from Hitchens' latest piece:

HERE we go again: first the phoney war and then the war of the phoneys. In Kuwait, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan - all of the post-Cold War conflicts against regional aggressors and terror-sponsoring states - it was necessary first to endure a lengthy period of apocalyptic warnings.

If the democracies stuck up for themselves or others, there would be intensified chaos and misery, uncountable civilian casualties, intervention from other states to widen the war, legacies of bad blood, massive alienation, etc, etc.

You have read it and I have read it.

The question is - do those who have written this tripe ever dare to go back and see how wrong they were last time?

Sure...many of them simply change the dates and names and spout the same idiocy.

He goes on to mock the idea that Russia as an ally would lend any sort of moral credibility.

And then:

There is no honour in killing Iraqi soldiers who are pointlessly fighting, leaderless and abandoned, out of fear.

And there is no glory in being hit by "friendly fire", as we ludicrously call it.

However, there is both honour and glory in being able to demolish the palaces and cellars of a murdering dictatorship, inflicting so few incidental casualties (and taking such obvious care to minimize them) that the propaganda of Saddam's goons can produce almost no genuine victims to gloat over.

I feel disgust for those who blame this week's deaths on the intervention and not on its sole target: Saddam Hussein.

And he wraps up:

But here's the point to keep your eye on, as you listen to panicky broadcasts and scan instant news, with its freight of immediate tragedies.

By every indication we have, the population of Baghdad was making a secret holiday in its heart as those horrible palaces went up in smoke, and this holiday will soon be a public holiday, and if we all keep our nerve we can join the festivities with a fairly clear conscience.