THERE is something deeply moving about the men - and it's mostly men - who have appeared on TV in the last 24 hours, to talk about the suicide bomb murder of the three Black Watch soldiers.

Tough, 50-something blokes with gruff, Scottish voices, most of them standing outside the regiment's Perthshire HQ. Most of them ex Black Watch men themselves. Most of them with sons, cousins and nephews, risking their necks in Iraq. And most of them fighting back the tears because, in their hearts, and from their own military experience, they must have known that something like this would happen.

You'd think they would rant and rave and throw well-deserved accusations at Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon for being so utterly spineless as to have sent their boys into this hellhole to save George Dubya's backside.

But no. Once a soldier, always a soldier. So, although they speak of the shock they feel, the pain of the loss, they all seem to finish their little pieces to camera by grimly reiterating that the Black Watch had a job to do, and that they'll continue to do it.

It was left to the women to articulate the pain. Ellen, a caller to GMTV yesterday morning, finished her tearful comments with: "I hope Tony Blair can sleep at nights."

Oh yes, Ellen, I'm sure he can. For his precious sons aren't anywhere near a war zone.

Euan and Nicky, and little Leo, will never have to make the split-second, life or death decisions, or face becoming the plaything of politicians as do our soldiers. Their mum and dad will make damn sure they aren't put at risk of bombs and bullets and the actions of madmen, in a filthy foreign war.

The parents of Sgt Stuart Grey, Pte Paul Lowe and Pte Scott McArdle, whose broken bodies were flown home yesterday, will never see their sons smile, or hear their voices again. Three more poppies to add to the thousands in our fields of remembrance. Three more flowers of Scotland, torn up by the roots.

When the Black Watch arrived in the danger zone earlier this week, they handed out a card, edged in their distinctive tartan, showing a soldier carrying the saltire of St Andrew and greeting some Iraqi schoolchildren.

"We understand that many of you may not have met a Scotsman before," it says. "But the same is not true of the soldiers of my regiment.

"We have already spent many months working in your country and have made many friends among the Iraqi people. We have all benefited from a mutual respect of each other's cultures."

A simple, polite and heartfelt attempt to connect with a brutalised and suspicious people, whom they had been sent there to help.

Compare the dignity and friendliness of those statements with what was going on in America, at virtually the same time.

While the Black Watch were setting up camp, millions of Americans were busy re-electing a draft-dodging, gun-slinging, right-wing, war-mongering, poor-hating, fundamentalist half-wit back to their White House for another four years.

And, instead of realising that his so-called victory was regarded with horror by virtually every other nation on the planet, instead of acknowledging that his country is split down the middle by his cretinous policies, instead of talking about a kinder, gentler America, Dubya said this. "I've earned capital in this election and I'm gonna spend it."

Following that blood-curdling announce-ment, he then told reporters, at around the time of the murder of the Black Watch men, that there would be "some fun" during his second term.

It's a given that he's not fit to lick the boots of men like Sgt Stuart Grey and his comrades. But the contrast in what was being said and done in America and in Iraq on Thursday was, frankly, obscene.

Last week, in a sickening echo of yet another pointless conflict, Tony Blair boasted that the Black Watch would be "home by Christmas".

I suppose, for once, he was telling the truth.

They will be.

It's just that at least three of them will be spending it, six feet under, with the snow falling on their freshly dug graves.