Letter: Are we Blair's willing bombers?

Brian Pocock London W6
Saturday 24 April 1999 18:02 EDT
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"HOW GUILTY is the Serbian nation as a whole?" asks Andrew Gumbel before joining the throng of those who glibly compare Serbs with the Germans under the Nazis. Apart from the fact that what Serbs have done in Kosovo cannot and must not be equated with the Holocaust, this line of reasoning is sophistry at its worst.

Where were the protests among the Albanians when the KLA killed and kidnapped civilians as well as security forces, Albanians as well as Serbs? According to the Gumbel/ Daniel Goldhagen hypothesis, Albanians are thus supporters of terrorism and enemies of the state. Or, more pertinently, are we, the British nation, Blair's Willing Bombers? The disproportionate destruction of a country's infrastructure, bridges, car factories, chemical plants and residential blocks are acts of aggression and have not been sanctioned by the UN.

Those who object to what is done supposedly in our name should stand up and be counted, because history will look on our barbaric behaviour and judge accordingly. America has a record of such offensive militarism, but, with the end of the Cold War, there is no excuse for Britain meekly to follow suit.

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