SINCE the end of the Second World War, millions of people have died in subsequent wars. Is it any wonder that the United Nations General Assembly has been described as a 'bunch of crooks?'

Peter Billington (Letters, April 12) seems to think that it is all right to go to war, as long as it has the rubber stamp approval of the UN Security Council. But the same crooks who sit in the General Assembly, sit on the Security Council.

Mr Billington objects to NATO's strategy in Serbia and would have preferred negotiations, but he has still been taken in by the 'Boys Own' media version of the Balkans conflict, which says that the American empire (but not an empire in name) and its European allies have gone to war against the Milosevic regime for altruistic reasons; that is, to defend the interests of the Albanian-Kosovar minority.

If Mr Billington thinks that wars are conducted to rid the planet of dictators and the like, war would have disappeared long ago. The blitz on Serbia is a war over spheres of influence, in which Milosevic is regarded as a 'destabilising factor.' To paraphrase Clauswitz: War is business by other means. In this equation, the Albanian-Kosovan refugees are small change indeed.

If Mr Billington thinks that Tony Blair is concerned for the fate of ethnic minorities, he should ask him why, at the time of writing, the Turkish jets being used against the Serbs are used to bomb the Kurds?

BRIAN LIVESEY, Belfield Road, Accrington.

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