Unicef, on the spot, reckoned that 40 per cent of the dead were children. That is malign rubbish. The bombing from the air and the battles in the streets go on simultaneously. The carnage is worse, not better. Patriotic pride tells us so.
History adds prudence to such pride.
Prudence, of course, is not high on the British agenda at the moment. Tony Blair is, supposedly, a natural war leader. His rhetoric resounds. We can, in short, always learn the wrong lessons. Yet the real lesson already stands clear above the rubble.