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In situations like the one we’re in, a lot of people (though not Independent readers) believe what they want to believe. I had rather an acrimonious run-in with some leading CND members during a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference a fortnight ago. At the end of the discussion, as most people hurried to the bar, one of the CND group took me to task for suggesting that the eternally venal United States had intervened in Bosnia for largely humanitarian reasons. “I have been told that they did it,” he said, “because Turkey was about to send troops to Bosnia”.God knows where that one came from. There was no time, unfortunately, to get out the maps and show him the impossibility of this threat: the necessary violations of Greek air-space, the logistical problems of shipping troops across the Aegean and up the Adriatic, or overland via Bulgaria and an invasion of Serbia. Nevertheless this illusion played quite an important part in maintaining this man’s faith that America was always wrong.But he seemed sincere, and he probably did love peace. It is interesting how, despite disagreements, in this country at any rate, we have avoided insulting each other.

Those who believe that there must be a military component in the battle against terrorism have not – on the whole – been labelled as mad-eyed, gung-ho militarists. And despite the inevitable cries of “debate is being stifled!” on the left, those who marched against the bombing have not been characterised as limp-wristed fainthearts or fifth column terror-symps. It wasn’t so civilised during the Falklands War, I tell my children (who have never heard of Port Stanley or General Galtieri). These days you don’t hear much about the Enemy Within.That’s good.

My quarrel with the peace movement is not that their concerns are misplaced, but that they abdicate from taking responsibility for the potential consequences of their preferred strategies. One of the most popular CND slogans at the moment is “not in my name”. Addressing last weekend’s peace demonstration in London, Darren Johnson, leader of the Green group on the Greater London Assembly, told demonstrators: “There are thousands and thousands of us here today for peace and justice. The messages here are very simple – stop the bombing of Afghanistan, end the war now.”The chairperson of CND, Carol Naughton, was quoted as saying: “We’re here because there are thousands of people across Britain who know that the bombing of Afghanistan is not going to put an end to terrorism.”What she didn’t say is that there is no one in Britain who thinks that bombing will put an end to terrorism. These are indeed simple messages for an incredibly complex problem. Nor did she or Mr Johnson, as far as I can tell, ever address the consequences of inactivity.