Without UN authority Nato has set a dangerous precedent by flouting international law.

They are attacking a small sovereign country that has not invaded or even threatened neighbouring states, but has the misfortune to be waging a war within its own borders against the terrorist KLA (the KLA being a registered terrorist organisation accused by the USA of dreadful atrocities).

There is no ethnic group within the region that has not perpetuated heinous crimes or suffered from them, so why act only against the Serbs?

Prior to the bombing of Serbia the refugees - generated throughout the world in all conflicts - were moderate and manageable, with aid workers and international monitors within Kosovo the barbarism of human nature was tempered.

The widespread bombing by Nato forces that cannot be engaged by the Yugoslav army was inevitably going to create a backlash against the Albanian population within which the KLA lives and moves.

By choosing to remove the international presence from Kosovo and taking the military option instead of the many financial and diplomatic pressures only now being brought to bear begs the question: has Nato turned a small regional conflict into a humanitarian disaster?

If the politicians continue to repeat again and again how just this 'war' is they may eventually convince themselves.

The British people, with their sense for balanced justice, may not be so easily persuaded.

Alec Featherstone,

Outgang Road,

Pickering.

...I AM appalled by the continuing and escalating Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosovo.

It is hard to believe that 'civilised' countries would unleash such barbaric punishment upon a population. This is achieving absolutely nothing. It has strengthened the position of Milosevic and it certainly hasn't stopped the flow of refugees from Kosovo.

Of course the genocide perpetrated by the Serbians against the ethnic Albanians is horrifying, but the fact remains that two wrongs don't make a right. In this, as in countless others - Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Libya, Iraq - the US has opted for a quick fix.

Whenever thwarted or outraged, they simply use their superior force and technology against the offender or aggressor.

After the lesson of Vietnam, bombing has replaced invasion in order to avoid public outcry against servicemen returning home in body bags. Never mind the deaths of innocent civilians and ruinous damage in the bombed areas.

Such mentality has a brutalising effect upon society as a whole. A tragic caricature of this 'shoot first, think later' attitude occurred in my home state of Colorado when teenagers (with access to guns and bombs) decided to protest against bullying by some of their peers with the use of extreme violence.

Most worrying is that Britain seems to be buying into this philosophy.

It saddens me that Tony Blair seems as much in thrall to Bill Clinton as Margaret Thatcher was to Ronald Reagan.

Instead of always letting the US 'call the shots' why not try a more positive, effective and less expensive strategy?

More effort should be put into a firm but peaceful solution via the UN and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The first step is to stop the bombing.

Margaret Vernon,

Sandstock Road,

Pocklington.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.