Letter: Support for Nato

Sir: Like your reader Chris Ormerod (letter, 28 May) and the majority of Europeans, I am not ashamed of Nato's actions. I support them. I am very surprised by all the armchair liberals such as your newspaper and its readers who, from the comfort of their homes, attack this government for hogging the moral high ground.

The problem with the British is their traditional lack of faith in Europe. You only have to look at the crude and almost childlike fears expressed by your anti-European parties. Intervention seems to be the rudest word in the English political language and it brings back all the anti-papal ghosts of the past. Well, boo to you.

Unless ground troops are used, and are prepared to defend Albanian women, children and men at the risk of their own safety, we are all responsible for their suffering. And if the West yet again negotiates with Milosevic rather than removing him, then the only people who will have suffered will be the ordinary people in Kosovo and Serbia.

Until a few days ago, it looked as if the West was about to find just such a cop-out. Now we have Louise Arbour and Slobodan Milosevic's indictment.

Before your readers - and you too, maybe - start grumbling about this too, and just to let you know that many people do not think like you, here is a quote from political commentator Jacques Julliard (Nouvel Observateur, 13/19 May):

"When such a collective crime [genocide] is revealed in full daylight, it will shame at least three categories of people: in the West, those in favour of peace at all costs; in Serbia, most of the Serbs themselves; in Nato, all the political and military leaders opposed to ground intervention". You have been warned.

PASCALE GILLET

Versailles, France