(And yes, the US is indeed one of the few countries left which hasn’t signed up to the 1997 Ottawa Convention – the Mine Ban Treaty – a distinguished list of 41 nations that includes such bastions of democracy and freedom as Burma, China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Vietnam, as well as a bunch of other dodgy buggers.)

I like the US. I genuinely do. But it really is very hard to argue against its critics sometimes…