Letter: Choices facing Nato

Sir: I am concerned by the amount of space taken up in your letters page by opponents of the Nato action to prevent and reverse the brutal ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

Many of these letter writers seem to write from the perspective of the anti-American Left in Britain, who are still locked into Cold War attitudes to America/Nato. Though their views may be genuinely held, they really must realise that the world has moved on and that the Cold War is over.

Military action is never a palatable option, but what is happening in Kosovo cannot be accepted by the civilised nations of the world and is reminiscent of what the Nazis did in Europe in the 1940s. Negotiations were tried but failed and what is necessary now is military action to defeat the Serbs and return the Kosovar refugees to their homes under a UN/Nato protection force, of which Russia should form a part. At a later date the people of Kosovo should determine the future status of their country through a referendum. In the interim period Kosovo should remain a UN/Nato protectorate.

Public opinion polls seem to indicate that the majority of people in Britain support the Nato intervention and are increasingly beginning to see the need for the use of ground troops. The weakness of the case against intervention made by the anti-American Left, as well as by the isolationist Right, is that they propose no effective alternative.

M OWEN

London E17