IN the late Twenties and early Thirties most people wanted peace and governments were hamstrung in their attempts to re-arm.

Peace Pledge Union members would not have resisted an invader at any price and the Oxford Union passed by a large majority a motion, 'this house would not fight for king and country'.

The League Of Nations was ineffective, Mr Chamberlain waved a piece of paper, saying "peace in our time".

A year on we were at war and more than 20 million were killed and countless others injured or displaced from their homelands because of a dictator who portrayed himself as a God-like creature to his people.

Today we are faced with a dictator who portrays himself the same way. He has made war on two countries and has used on them, and his own people, chemical and biological weapons.

Are we to wait until he uses these weapons against his perceived enemies? The UN is impotent because most member countries are governed by dictators.

It has been suggested Britain and the US should not strike first because we should stick to the moral high ground.

Tell the people killed or injured in a first strike by an aggressor that they are protected by the moral high ground.

In the 1939-45 war more than 40,000 civilians were killed in Great Britain alone and about a quarter of a million injured. One could say they were sacrificed to the moral high ground so beloved by the peacemongers.

There are not many people left such as myself, who lived through the late Twenties and Thirties and who saw the slide to war because most people wanted peace.

History never exactly repeats itself but there are sufficient similarities between now and 80 years ago to make us think very hard about what should be done.

J Stockton,

Ridgeway, York.

...WE hear the British Government is preparing to send tanks to the Arabian Gulf in readiness for the Bush administration's war with Iraq.

The use of armour suggests a full frontal invasion of Iraq which, it is said, would involve a ground force of at least 350,000 men.

Where are they to come from? As Kosovo and Afghanistan made clear, the US is reluctant to use its own ground troops in these numbers. Who is going to be dragooned into this mindless war of revenge?

No one listening to George Bush, who appears to use the word terrorist as a synonym for Muslim, can be confident he has any concept of the horrors his strutting militarism is likely to release well beyond the frontiers of Iraq.

I read with despair intelligent, compassionate Labour MPs attempting to justify the inexplicable policy of the Prime Minister in supporting Bush.

To affect to see self-destructive aggressive intent on Saddam Hussein, a man whose talent and effort is devoted to seeking and enjoying dictatorial power and the benefits it brings, is unbelievable. It requires a mind-set that would have every non-Israeli in the Middle East become a suicide bomber.

It reflects a mind-set that was prepared to promise not to forget Afghanistan when the Taliban were ousted, and then to welch on the promise of $4.5 billions of reconstruction aid.

If we want to remove the causes of conflict, one question that demands an answer, which can be based on facts that are to hand, is how the US and UK governments are implementing their promise to the people of Afghanistan, and why the aid is only a small fraction of what was pledged.

Maurice Vassie,

Deighton, York.

...I DISCOVERED an old school report from more than 35 years ago, in which a teacher commented that, in his opinion, I would do far better if I were not surrounded by fools. As Bush, Sharon and Prime Minister Blair seem determined to start World War III, it would appear that not only are we surrounded by fools, we are being led by fools.

Jeff Stone,

Millfield Road, York.

Updated: 10:19 Friday, October 11, 2002