No Rock And Roll Fun

MORNING HAS BROKEN: And if you need to be reminded of the need for a regime change in the US, surely the refusal of America to allow Cat Stevens entry on "national security grounds" is as much an indication of an administration that's gone nuts? Stevens, whose passport now carries the name Yusuf Islam, was detained by the Feds at Maine Bangor airport - apparently his name was on an "international watch list", and the threat he presented to the US was so important, they even diverted the plane from its planned route in order to get him off the flight as soon as possible.

Now, it is possible, we concede, that Cat Stevens was travelling with a suitcase full of nuclear material and the plans to the inside of Camp David, in exactly the same way that it's not totally impossible that Donny Osmond brought a thousand rabid bats into the UK on his recent visit, hidden in his hatband. But both are equally unlikely. In which case, it seems that Stevens has turned up as a threat to national security in the sense of being a prominent and vocal critic of the war in Iraq - and how insecure must a government be to see criticism as a threat to be repelled?