KILLING people is wrong. I'd like to make this clear at the start.It is not a bit wrong. It is not wrong sometimes. It is not just wrong if you're on the "wrong" side.

KILLING people is wrong. I'd like to make this clear at the start.

It is not a bit wrong. It is not wrong sometimes. It is not just wrong if you're on the "wrong" side.

It is simply wrong. Full stop.

There is one, very rare, exception. This is the case of sane people who wish to die but can't do it without help - which they ask for.

Jackie Elliott did not ask to die. He spent 16 years being held against his will by people who threatened to kill him. And then they did.

It may be that Jackie Elliott murdered Joyce Munguia. He said he didn't, and there is evidence to suggest he was telling the truth.

We will probably never know, because the people who killed him didn't wait to check the evidence.

Either way - whether he was a murderer himself or the victim of a grotesque frame-up - Jackie Elliott was murdered.

He was the 290th victim of the same killers in a grisly 20-year reign of terror.

The ring-leader of this blood-thirsty gang of murderers is one Rick Perry. He took over the role (the official title is Governor of the State of Texas) from a certain George W Bush.

You may have heard of him before.

Mr Bush is now at the controls of the most powerful killing machine in the history of the world. It is called the United States of America.

And he is in the process of repeating on a grand and terrifying scale the same crime that was committed against Jackie Elliott.

He will send his paid minions to kill first and ask questions later, if at all.

He is not really interested in evidence - only in having enough fudged together to "justify" a war of aggression that he is going to launch anyway.

And don't imagine for a moment that America might NOT attack Iraq.

The spin doctors (or "liars" as they should more accurately be called) on both sides of the Atlantic have been too hard at work for too long to leave the intention in any doubt.

There are a few reasons why this will happen. And none of them has anything to do with supposed weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein.

After all, Tony Blair has plenty of those at his disposal. So have the leaders of France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China and others. George W Bush has more than anyone.

One of the root causes of almost every war is the desire of big companies that make expensive weapons to create a market for their vile products. But that's too vague to explain why this particular war at this particular time.

There is the issue of oil, which America guzzles at an obscene rate and which Iraq produces.

Looked at this way, we are about to see an old-fashioned war of imperialism. Or theft.

Other oil-gushing Gulf nations might well feel relieved to be counted among America's friends rather than its foes.

But even that doesn't quite explain the timing.

For that one must look at the internal politics of the country about to launch the war - the good ol' US of A. And at the man who will issue the order to attack.

George W Bush was elected President in a farcical parody of democracy. A majority, even of those Americans who voted, actually voted against him.

He could hardly expect to win a second election in 2004 unless something happened to boost his popularity across the states.

From that point of view, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were a godsend to him.

But the effect of that grim day on Bush's popular appeal is waning now and he has done nothing himself to earn the respect and approval of his voters.

And he knows - as every leader from Alexander the Great to Margaret Thatcher has known - that nothing boosts an unpopular leader's popularity more than a good war.

Which is why hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of Iraqis and others must die. To get George W Bush re-elected.

Quite why our own grinning, spinning government should subscribe to this course of wickedness is not so clear.

Unless it is simply the cynical, expedient decision to back what is bound to be a winning side.

Or the even more cynical desire to boost the sales of Britain's sizeable "defence" industry.

Neither of which is a good enough reason to kill people.