NATO now admits it carried out the bombing of the refugee column in Kosovo. But they have also bombed bridges carrying civilians, villages with inhabitants, a passenger train, and a factory containing the workers acting as human shields. Children lie writhing in agony with brain damage in Yugoslav hospitals.

On the other side the ethnic Albanians have had their villages torched by the Serbs and their menfolk probably executed by the ethnic cleansers.

The point is we are now in the same bloody and barbaric gutter as the Serbs and have lost any moral superiority we may have had over them. But this was the entire point of this war, according to Tony Blair.

There is no military end game either, whether by air or land. Kosovo is not recognised as a separate entity by Serbia and has a long border, a situation we recognise in Northern Ireland, but about a thousand times worse, with the possibility of Russian back-up to Serbia.

We need to stop the bombing, and start doing something constructive like taking the long view.

We could fund the pro-democracy movement in Belgrade, who nearly unseated Milosevic. We could negotiate our way out, without demanding unconditional surrender, which we will never get.

One last point, I would like to vote for an anti war party at the elections, will anyone stand up and tell Tony Blair where to get off in Parliament?

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive,

York.

...we are told in the press that the heroics of the Nato alliance have reduced Pristina to rubble. How is that going to help the people of Kosovo?

It may help Milosevic continue in his disgusting nationalism and racism, and it may silence those naturally opposed to him, but it will leave any returning refugees, as well as those Albanians still resident, homeless.

As a nation don't we always disbelieve politicians? Why should we believe them now when all common sense tells us that they are merely creeping to their political masters in Washington just as they have done throughout this, the bloodiest century in human history. Now it would appear that New Labour would take us into the next Millennium reeking of new killing fields.

Some commentators in Parliament and the media speak of there being no alternative to the bombing. Why not try these tried and tested alternatives?

Wholehearted encouragement and military assistance, as in the case of the Israeli cleansing of millions of Muslims from their homeland and the subsequent bombing of their refugee camps in the states daring to harbour them, for over 50 years.

Turning a blind eye to all excesses and supplying limitless armaments to carry on the slaughter, as in the case of the Turkish State, which has persecuted the Kurdish minority and killed over 30,000 of them since Britain abolished Kurdistan.

What about agreeing to a truly international force of UN peace keepers instead of the present murderous conspiracy?

The UVF, INLA, UDF and the IRA must be radically reappraising their positions after recent statements from Blair and his cronies in the press. It seems that it is now both respectable and feasible to bomb ones way to a favourable political settlement! Who would consider decommissioning now?

R Westmoreland,

The Oval,

Pocklington.

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