A national debate on our armed forces
DEFENCE Minister Adam Ingram, MP (Ingram calls for national debate February 26), is absolutely right that the British military often don't get the support they deserve. For instance ministers often fail to support them by lying to them about non-existent threats to the UK and sending them into unnecessary wars such as Iraq in which they are put in impossible situations and in many cases not provided with body armour or armoured vehicles - resulting in their deaths. The MoD also fails to support British veterans who are denied proper counselling and housing. Many end up homeless or even commit suicide.

Adam Ingram also pretends the debate is between the government and pacifists who won't consider any kind of military action. In fact, it's between those who only want to risk war if it's necessary to defend their country or prevent genocide and massacres and those - like Adam Ingram - who throw our troops into any war no matter whether it makes us less safe, no matter whether it will kill more civilians than it saves.

If you really support our troops, Adam, you'll bring them home now - or resign and let someone else do it.
Duncan McFarlane, Beanshields, Braidwood, Carluke.

To cut and run
AT LAST the final facade of Blair's and Bush's "decency" has been exposed for what it is. This exposure takes its place alongside the exposures of a long list of fictitious claims - eg, the existence of weapons of mass destruction and that the source of 9/11 was to be found in a corrupt Iraqi regime.

The charge made by others that designs on Iraq's oil were the sole reason for the invasion has, of course, been consistently denounced as a vile slander by both governments. They argued that, in spite of the fact that they had to admit that their "intelligence" was flawed, in itself a damage limitation exercise, the war could still be justified on overriding humanitarian grounds: Hussein was a vicious dictator and Iraq's people had to be saved from barbarism.

The barbarism, however, has escalated since the war and now more Iraqis are dying per month than died in 9/11 or under Saddam on a four-weekly basis. The death squads have merely taken on new management.

The truth is finally surfacing as both Blair and Bush get set to cut and run from a chaos of their own devising. Now both governments are having international oil companies "help" the Iraq government draft Iraq's oil law in such a way that long-term control of Iraq's energy assets will be handed over to multinationals.

And to think that there are those in the Labour Party who still believe that their government is wedded to something even remotely akin to socialism.

A B Robertson, Window Rock, Innellan.

Iran and Israel
WHY do all the countries, which are themselves nuclear powers, object to Iran's nuclear enrichment programme, even though such a programme did lead to it having nuclear warheads? After all, the argument for nuclear weapons during the Cold War was that, with both sides possessing such weapons, neither side would dare to use them.

Consider, then, the position of Iran today, it being threatened not only by the US, but also by nuclear Israel, which is at present negotiating with the US to allow its planes to fly over Iraq in order to conduct "surgical air strikes" against Iran's nuclear programme.

This naked aggression by Israel (which no doubt will not even be condemned by the UN) in its pursuit of a "greater Zion", involving annexing parts of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, is the real Middle East danger, a danger which would not exist if Iran had been a nuclear power.

Andrew D Mowatt, 3 Bent Road, Hamilton.

Rail safety
Irrespective of the reasons for the Cumbrian rail crash, surely it is time that passengers on trains wore seatbelts and, apart from visiting the toilet or purchasing refreshments, there should be no passengers standing as a matter of course. I'm sure the rail operating companies will say it is uneconomic but, to my mind, their failure to do this is one of the main reasons for death and serious injury when derailments and other similar incidents occur.
Robert Steadman, 5 Henry Avenue, Matlock, Derbyshire.