Back.

Before I left I managed to get a half hour in the Detroit Historical Museum especially the new section on the history of techno but also the Detroit Underground � the secret pathways and safe houses used to smuggle escaped slaves over the border to freedom.

At the airport I looked at the latest copy of Newsweek � I can strongly recommend it. The Periscope page is at the front and at the bottom is a section called Conventional wisdom � you either get an up or down arrow. Bush gets a down � �Is he making it up as he goes along? Offers yet another unconvincing reason for war. Mideast peace � huh?�

The back page is The Last Word and is a carefully worded article by Anna Quindlen. Some quotes:

�We are waiting for some good reason - for a great nation to make a real argument, the irrefutable argument, the �aha!� argument for invading Iraq�.

She discusses Saddam�s character and then: �But the character of our president is every bit as important. I am waiting to be certain that this rush to combat is NOT the work of a combatative disposition.�

�The danger in having enormous power that the ambition to use it for good can often be subverted by the temptation to use it for dominance.�

The History Professor at the University of Chicago who is also a Lutheran minister carefully argues against Bush�s conviction based foreign policy � �One hopes that the Bush people will keep in mind that the claims of God always being on our side are alienating for many of our former or would-be allies�.

As my stay in the USA went on more and more of this carefully argued scepticism appeared in the mainstream media.

There is a joke going round that the US Armed Forces are calling this the �Justice War� except they spell it �Just Us�. This might well be true .

And then there's Miss M's take on JUST ICE.

And now to Leantown