“Ha ha ha to the pacifists”, wrote Christopher Hitchens in November, as Kabul fell to the combined might of U.S. bombers, the Northern Alliance, and the BBC’s ‘Simpson of Kabul’. A month later, the victory celebrations continue tirelessly (almost manically), as the “first virtual war” draws to a close. It was “an instant, foolproof, bloodless recipe, like Delia Smith for bombers”, crows the Observer’s Mary Riddell, demonstrating due respect for the untold numbers of civilian victims incinerated by U.S. bombs and starving to death in the frozen hills of Afghanistan.

---