Letter: Kosovo's new terror

Sir: Felicity Arbuthnot is entitled to her favourable opinion of Robert Fisk's anti-Nato polemics (letter, 15 June), but not to draw an analogy with George Orwell.

Unlike Fisk, Orwell believed in siding with the United States against tyranny. He demolished the most egregious of anti-American campaigners, Konni Zilliacus MP, in an article entitled with heavy irony "In Defence of Comrade Zilliacus", observing that "in spite of all the fashionable chatter of the moment, everyone knows in his heart that we should choose America. The great mass of people in this country would, I believe, make this choice almost instinctively."

Nato's Kosovo campaign confirms Orwell's perspicacity; public opinion is generally readier to see the merits of confronting aggression than politicians and journalists assume.

OLIVER KAMM

London WC1