Saddam Hussein headed a state within which religious doctrine was not permitted to actively control political policy and it represented peace, at a price.

Tony Blair has consistently embraced a continued and culturally well-established and humanistic drive in the UK (I praise him for removing Saddam from his position of torturer in Iraq).

But Blair shares similar, pragmatic, religious beliefs to those Saddam held. In the US it would probably be impossible to be elected as President without the active support of its strong religious factions - in particular, Christian ones, but this may change as the Muslim population there, now estimated at 10 million, is continuing to grow.

So where does the true enemy of reason lie?

I would suggest in the covert and insidious influence of religion in general. What allows an individual to make autonomous decisions in the absence of reason, science or rational consideration? What pits one neighbour murderously against another and allows that neighbour to torture and maim their previous friend and allows its communal followers to abandon any natural human sensitivity for others in order to satisfy something more pressing, more political, more religious?

Religion. Its essential "doctrinal" suspension of reason within its own impermeable and bigoted walls represents the greatest threat to humanity today.

Not terrorism, not global warming, not social disorder, but religion. The most important freedom we can all preserve, regardless of any personal spiritual convictions we may have, is to preserve and retain our, currently ambiguous, "secular state" which is now in real danger from many disparate "religious" forces.

-Roger Browne, Hove