Letter: What now for Serbs?

Sir: Now that Nato has apparently won the latest Balkans war, may I be allowed to point out the Big Lies that sustained the campaign?

Big Lie One: This was a "humanitarian" war. There is no such thing. All wars are barbarous. In this particular barbarism the suffering of the Kosovars actually increased after the bombardment started.

I suspect that aiding the Kosovars was merely a pretext and that Nato's secret agenda was to destroy Serbia as a regional power and, by establishing a Nato protectorate in the Balkans, to gain hegemony over the region. This is called imperialism.

Big Lie Two: The Serbs engaged in genocide. There were undoubtedly mass expulsions from, and probably within, Kosovo but these outrages fall a long way short of the systematic extermination of an entire people.

Big Lie Three: Nato did all in its power to avoid civilian casualties. If this was the case why did Nato bomb civilian targets? If wars must be fought then the only legitimate targets are enemy troops, whether in barracks, trenches or vehicles.

Three Big Lies in a single campaign - Goebbels would have approved.

A KNIGHT

Billericay, Essex