What can one say ? To save civilisation it is necessary to use uncivilised methods. The difficulty is that the US and others have always played down and dirty but, to use Coman's phrase, we usually had the dignity to pretend we did so reluctantly. These guys enjoy it and are unashamed of that enjoyment.

But let's not make any mistake about this. This is not a break with the past, this is an acknowledgement that what was once a minority sport is preferred policy.

We have not been civilised since the beginning of the Cold War. We've just been very good at fooling ourselves that we're the good guys and have arrived in hell on a path strewn with rose-petalled delusions

keep to the Fen Causeway