Well, here we go. We've all known, I think, in our hearts for some time that this was inevitable. The protests, the marches, the letters, the songs, the speeches. We are, whether we like it or not - at war. Bombs over Baghdad this morning. "Only" a few, but it only takes one bomb to kill someone unintended. They certainly don't seem to have hit Saddam Hussein.

I turn on the BBC, and it never stops. Let's go over to Rageh Omaar in Baghdad. It never stops. John Simpson, what's the situation in the Kurdish north? It never stops. We can now turn to Lyse Doucet in Amman. It never stops. Hello, Julian Worricker in Qatar. It never stops. Here's Jon Sopel in Kuwait City. It never stops. Both war-war and jaw-jaw. It never stops.

It never stops.

A lot of people seem to think that once war is declared (which technically it never is these days, for legal and political reasons, but never mind that here), it's beholden on us whose countries' forces are in the Gulf to close ranks, to unite as one voice, to support our troops by supporting this war. I support my country's troops all right. The British armed forces are tremendous; perhaps the most professional in the world. I'm proud of their standards, and of the way they behave. I'm sure they'll do their jobs well, and I hope against hope that they all come home alive.

But it's not at all contradictory to wish the forces every success while also believing that they shouldn't be there at all.

Every time I look up, I see George Bush staring back at me, telling us all why America and its allies are in the process of liberating Iraq and upholding the cause of freedom. Or I see Tony Blair, a man who I think really does believe this is a war of liberation, hanging onto his coat tails even as he's dragged through the gutters. Bush tells us that America has no selfish interest in Iraq; that it should be governed by the Iraqi people.

It never stops.

And every time I hear this, I think about Chile, where thirty years ago - on 11th September, incidentally - the US helped to bring to power a dictator under whose rule thousands of people were murdered, tortured and "disappeared".

Or Guatemala. Where fifty years ago the US helped to overthrow a democracy and install a dictatorship on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

Or Nicaragua. Remember Oliver North funding the Contras with the proceeds from arms sales to - er - Iran? Of course, that was only bad because the West wasn't backing Iran just then. It was supposed to be on the other side, led by... er... Saddam Hussein. Nice to meet an old friend.

Or Cuba. Where a forty-year blockade has done nothing to help the country's people, and nothing to remove the man in power.

Or Grenada. An invasion of a country with the Queen as Head of State, that even Margaret Thatcher found impossible to stomach. The unpleasantness of the coup leaders is beside the point.

Or Venezuela. Where the US embarrassed itself by publicly supporting a coup even as it was failing.

Or Iran. Where American support for the corrupt Shah over decades made it possible for the extremism of the Ayatollah Khomenei regime to take power.

So the US doesn't really have any business wittering on about freedom and democracy. And I haven't even mentioned Florida.

Not that my own country gets out of this: Britain is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world, and over the years has helped prop up plenty of nasty regimes. Apartheid South Africa being the most obvious example, but there's no shortage of others, such as the Indonesian regime of Suharto, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in East Timor. The fact that British jets and guns were used there makes me hang my head in shame. And it was Britain who created Iraq in 1921, drawing lines on paper without reference to conditions on the ground.

It never stops.

I watch the debates in the House of Commons, and I am encouraged and repelled by turns. Encouraged by the number of MPs prepared to speak up for what they believe in - Robin Cook's resignation speech was extraordinarily powerful. Strong views on either side, expressed well and eloquently, and without the silly cries of "traitor" that come from other corners of the media. Repelled by the vitriol poured on the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese... but especially the French. I don't have a lot of time for Jacques Chirac - he has an awful lot of mud clinging to his back, and a lot of it smells as though it might not just be mud. But the gratuitous abuse being thrown about by people who should know better is shameful. Chirac was wrong to say that the veto would be used whatever the circumstances. But on the important issue - that the war is unjustified and wrong - he was, and is, right.

The only questions that really matter are these: one, will this war help to transform Iraq into a modern, free, democratic state, or - as in Afghanistan - will the world simply lose interest once Saddam is ousted? A pro-Western dictator is still a dictator, and much as we might find the idea of a more revolting and wicked regime than Saddam's unimaginable, history has a way of proving that cosy assumption wrong.

And two, will this war make the world a safer place? I can't see how it can. I think Saddam knows he's had it - and so is quite likely to turn himself into the ultimate suicide bomber, taking as much as he can down with him. He's already fired a few missiles at Kuwait today, so we know he's not shrinking from firing on his neighbours. And we know from last time that he's prepared to fire the oil fields. This time, he is - according to British army spokesmen - likely to use chemical weapons on the battlefield.

And then there's the chance of an attack on Israel. Enough said.

I haven't even mentioned the threat of terrorism. I don't think we'll see another 11th September, thank goodness, and I don't think there'll be attacks right at the start. But imagine the impact of an attack at the end of the war, just as Bush is telling us all how much safer the world now is. Imagine how frightening it would be to discover that all the security precautions in the world don't make one completely safe. We in Britain found this out the hard way - thirty years of the IRA taught us that total protection from terrorism is simply impossible, and kidding people that it is is utterly counter-productive. And if the Americans accept the notion of pre-emptive strikes, potential terrorists will reason, why shouldn't we?

Does all that sound to you like a safer world? Doesn't to me. Oh, and don't forget North Korea - a rogue state if ever there was one; a country which has openly boasted of its ambition to be a nuclear power and threatened to attack America and Japan.

It never stops.

So stop it.