Janet Rowntree contends in her letter about the Albanian Kosovars(Letters, April 23) that force never succeeded in quelling force, and that we should defeat the forces of evil by turning the other cheek. These are easy opinions to express from York, but must rank low on any scale of practicability. If you turn the other cheek around Pristina, it is likely someone will run a tank over it.

Occasionally history throws up leaders who do not subscribe to conventional morality, and are driven by forces that set them against what is conventionally regarded as acceptable behaviour.

As a general rule they cause such disruption that they must be got rid of by whatever means is necessary, and although that does not fit in with Christian morality, we all benefit from it.

Should Janet Rowntree wish to suffer for the cause of peace, she is at liberty to do so, and I would be the last one to deride her idealism. I can't see many of the refugees agreeing with her sentiments, though.

Andy Baldock,

Villa Grove,

Heworth Green,

York

The root cause and reason for the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia was thefailure to agree to the Rambouillet terms. Among these terms was free Nato troop access to all facilities in Serbia and Kosovo. Good if you could have got it but wildly unrealistic.

The second point of difference was a referendum to be held on the state of Kosovo in three years. Now this was really stupid. Obviously the Serbs saw this as a green light to a full insurrection in three years' time. Any sovereign state would have rejected this.

Then Nato said, if you don't sign up to this, we will bomb you. The Nato action itself was illegal in international law which makes Tony Blair close to being a war criminal.

The clear message from Blair to the terrorist groups that live in our society is this, if you don't like the current state of society and law, what you do is bomb, as I have done. This is the message to the IRA, the UVF and the far Right who bombed Brixton and Brick Lane.

To put in ground troops in a ground war has no end game and will considerably widen the war. There is a refugee crisis in Kosovo, yes, but to fight evil, do I become evil myself? No thank you, Tony.

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive,

York

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