Letter: Strike on Iraq

Having invoked the authority of the imaginary "international community", the United States will soon unleash its own, very visible, weapons of mass destruction, to punish the Iraqi regime for daring to resist being treated like a colony.

In the past, such use of force by a western superpower against a Third World country would have been called imperialism; these days it is called peace-keeping. As with the former Yugoslavia, the West now claims the moral authority to interfere with the affairs of those regimes it deems "mad" or "evil", where the West is always the good guy, trying to enforce "sanity" and "order" on belligerent and childish nations.

I care little for Saddam. But my thoughts will be with the Iraqi people.

J J CHARLESWORTH

London N16