We in the West have become much more sensitive about war during the last 60 years.

Whereas Winston Churchill committed thousands of men a day to death and injury during the Second World War, today there would be a fuss if just one serviceman came back from conflict in a body bag.

Wars such as the first spat in the Gulf and the fighting in Afghanistan are over quickly. The chances of Iraq being able to repel the military might of the USA and any allies it may have left are small.

Despite that, there is more opposition to a second Gulf War than to any conflict for many years.

Why should there be so much concern when, by common consent, Saddam Hussein is a ruthless tyrant who has not hesitated to use terrible weapons against his own people and who is almost certainly lying over what he has hidden?

It's a curious combination of increased squeamishness coupled with a dislike of Americans in general and George W Bush in particular. There is worry that Tony Blair is sucking Britain into an unnecessary conflict when she is not being directly threatened by Saddam.

Many are suspicious that the real reason for American concern is oil rather than human rights. They are also concerned that a war will lead to more trouble in the Middle East, hatred of the West by Muslims and an increased risk of terrorism.

Maybe it's because this war has been so long in the making that I feel profoundly uneasy too. War should be the last available option for solving a crisis and should never be worse than the evil it is intended to eradicate.

Yet I dislike profoundly widespread contempt for the USA. Here is a country whose role we should never forget in the Second World War.

If Britain stood alone in 1940, she had America to thank for victory five years later and for acts of great generosity in those impoverished times following the ceasefire.

For all her faults, and they are many, America is a great democracy with a heartening vitality and a 'can do' mentality that seems to have been sucked out of Europe.

The Yanks may be naive, annoying, profligate and awkward but they are also frank, fearless and free.

We also underestimate how much a country which has never been invaded was affected by the events of September 11, 2001.

It was the modern equivalent of Pearl Harbour and while the Japanese suffered as a result of that, the enemy this time has proved more elusive.

Having failed to find Bin Laden, the Americans are going for a more available target in Saddam.

There are still some matters that concern me. Why should Tony Blair be so keen on the conflict when he has everything to lose and little to gain from it? He must really believe the cause is right.

The anti-war cause contains sincere people from many sections of the community and has spread its net wider than usual.

But it still includes people such as Tony Benn, a politician wrong more than most who is being turned from an idiot into an idol by old age and the loss of power.

I also wonder whether the people who oppose this war, or who want endless procrastination by the United Nations, are mainly those who would have made their peace with Hitler.

So I sit on the fence where the iron may enter my soul and where I can justly be sniped at by either side for failing to make a decision.

A columnist without a definite view is a rare beast but it is what I am on the biggest issue of our times and I am not alone.