With the Government now insisting that the Mirror's torture photos were fake (based, of course, on an MoD investigation) we can no doubt expect more of the usual bullshit about how much better the wonderful British troops are than their thuggish US counterparts. This is of course nonsense, there remains considerable evidence of British troops involved in "abuse" (the media still refuse to call it torture, the UN Declaration on Human Rights notwithstanding) of Iraqis, not to mention of Brits killing various innocent Iraqis. This mirrors a view which seem to be common within liberal elites and, tragically, sections of the anti-war movement, that somehow the UK is misguided and misled by an evil America, but ultimately benevolent. The reality is, of course, very different. As Jonathan Freedland argues:

It is too easy to keep blaming the Americans for this war and all that has followed, casting ourselves as the beret-wearing innocents who got sucked into Washington's evil scheme. It is no defence to say we were only following George Bush's orders. We are in Iraq by the choice of our own democratic government. We have to face that fact - and face ourselves.

Anything else would be moral cowardice.