Forging passports is certainly a bad thing – but is it worse than murder? To judge by the international reaction to the killing of al-Mabhouh, it is much worse. Yet it was not all that long ago that it was thought to be, well, indecent for a government to go around assassinating its enemies. When the Government sent a group of SAS officers to murder suspected members of the IRA on Gibraltar, there was an enormous international outcry. Britain was hauled before the European Court and severely admonished. Would there be such a response today? Only if the killers forged their travel documents.