"We can confirm that a UK national has been arrested by the Iraqi department of border enforcement," a British military spokesman said, adding that the Foreign Office was investigating the arrest, which was believed to have taken place on Monday night.

An Iraqi border guard spokesman in Najaf, Saadun al-Jaabari, said guards arrested "a terrorist group consisting of 10 people, including one British national called Colin Peter, near Mathlum, near the Saudi border".

The other nine were Iraqis from the southern city of Basra, he said.

The group was armed with machine guns and was carrying a video camera, a satellite telephone, and GPS satellite-tracking device, al-Jaabari added.

No rushing to judgment here, please. This man may have been a smuggler, a convert who wanted to fight for Iraq, an intelligence officer, or a documentary film-maker.

I am sure more will unravel in the hours and days to come.

Meanwhile, more reports of abuse of Iraqi persons have made it to the headlines. It is now known, from reports by US military personnel, that the abuses were not localized to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

From the volume of reports compiled by human rights groups, it now appears this behavior on the part of the US military was organized, consistent, and sanctioned.

It also appears it was rampant. Therefore, the statement US President George Bush repeated time and again that the torture was the work of a demented few is erroneous at best, a fabrication at worst.

According to Human Rights Watch, in a report published at Australia's Sunday Herald:

One sergeant provided graphic descriptions to Human Rights Watch investigators about acts of abuse carried out both by himself and others. He now says he regrets his actions. His regiment arrived at FOB Mercury in August 2003. He said: " The first interrogation that I observed was the first time I saw a PUC pushed to the brink of a stroke or a heart attack. At first I was surprised, like, 'This is what we are allowed to do?'"

The troops would put sand-bags on prisoners' heads and cuff them with plastic zip-ties. The sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said if he was told that prisoners had been found with homemade bombs, "we would f*** them up, put them in stress positions and put them in a tent and withhold water … It was like a game. You know, how far could you make this guy go before he passes out or just collapses on you?"

These are not reassuring statements from representatives of the US military, which itself is tantamount to an ambassadorship, if you will, to the rest of the world.

We hear talk of protecting the rights of minorities in different parts of the world - in China, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Cuba, Sierra Leone, etc. But when the protector turns out to have a few torturous tricks up his sleeves, what are we to think?

We hear talk of the clash of civilizations, but all I see and hear is the clash of boots and gear in the race to see which "western civilized" country can inflict more harm and damage on the downtrodden.

Do you remember the one about the Belgians - those champions of western civilization - roasting a Somali person over a fire?

No? Well, here you go. Cry fake all you want because the Belgian soldiers admitted it.

Does the world protest? Hell no, what's another black kid killed or tortured?

And in Iraq, what's another dead Iraqi? After all, didn't the US soldier who sent a picture of a dead Iraqi to a website write the caption - "what every Iraqi should look like"?

US President Bush went on television and told the world there is progress in Iraq. Hell yeah, there is progress in Iraq. The Iraqi interior ministry announced that the number of killed civilians they know of rose in September to 700+ up from 500+ in August.

Thank you for the progress, George. No wonder you were smiling in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. You saw that as progress too.