After Paris: what to do?
The arguments in Natalie Nougayrède’s 6 November article rest on a most questionable premise and ignore the disasters following US interventions in Iraq and Libya. The brutal civil war and rise of Islamic State in Syria will not be ended by foreign powers.
The conflict in Syria is part of a larger sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims. As such, isn’t it Islam’s version of the brutal wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe? These wars killed hundreds of thousands of people until we Christians finally persuaded ourselves to get along.
It is my hope that the west will stop fuelling the killing by arming the combatants, and instead offer only much more humanitarian aid.
Last spring I met a young army major, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot for 14 years with deployments in both Afghanistan and Iraq. When the subject of the Middle East came up, the first thing this officer said was, “Nothing we can do over there will be helpful.” With extensive first-hand experience in the region, this person had concluded that only the parties themselves can sort this out, that it will take a long time and that our positive contributions can only be diplomatic.
Mary Riseley
Cliff, New Mexico, US
• In her article Syria’s horror story is the price of inaction, Natalie Nougayrède laments the atrocities in Syria and lambasts the west, and particularly Barack Obama, for a failure to act. However, she never suggests what action the west might have taken to change the course of the war for the better.
Any examination of recent western actions in the Muslim countries reveals that they have almost universally been disastrous. The outcome in Afghanistan is very uncertain. The invasion of Iraq to remove a vicious dictator and eliminate non-existent weapons of mass destruction led to possibly half a million dead Iraqis, the present rise of Isis and the probable end of Iraq as an entity. The bombing in Libya turned it into a failed state with the creation of two warring governments, the rise of fundamental Islam and numerous feuding militias.
Many of the martyr videos recorded by Islamic terrorists state that western assaults on Muslim countries are the justification for their terrorist acts in the west. Which of the myriad of warring factions in Syria should the west have supported, and how?
Massive humanitarian aid to the millions of refugees from the Syrian civil war would do far more good in the Middle East, and do more to help slow the exodus to Europe, than any military intervention.
Chris Kennedy
Stella, Ontario, Canada
• The Guardian’s discerning article (Mindless terrorists? Truth about Isis is worse, 20 November) stands out from the plethora of comment about the Paris attacks. Isis is operating on three fronts: the central ground occupied in Iraq and Syria, terrorists infiltrating communities across the world, and its influence on people who feel dispossessed, especially the young. All three need to be targeted, especially the last.
Much needs to be done in a world riven by inequality. The Paris banlieues and similar places around the world are breeding grounds for discontent. Winning the battle against terrorism requires a change of heart amongst rich people, and countries, to share their wealth. People need a future to look forward to. The world will be a safer and happier place if we can achieve the goal set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights three-quarters of a century ago.
Christopher Venning
Perth, Western Australia
• European governments and the European media have demonstrated what non-Europeans have long believed: European lives and deaths are much, much more important than lives and deaths anywhere else. After the attacks, the French government moved to change laws and even the constitution, mobilise security forces, increase spending on military equipment and surveillance and close frontiers. And the media: hundreds of pages in the press, hundreds of hours of radio and television. What happened in Paris was horrific but it was on a par with what happens regularly in other parts of the world without much being said or done in Europe.
The European reaction has been positive for two groups: the arms industry and the terrorists who are looking for recruits.
Norman Coe
Sant Cugat del Vallès, Spain
Music as diplomacy
An early example of music used as cultural diplomacy (6 November) at the height of the cold war was seen and heard at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. The Soviet Union had scored a spectacular goal by putting the first Sputnik into orbit half a year before. Their huge rectangular pavilion displayed the tiny satellite front and centre, amid a clutter of 1930s-style kitchen appliances, mammoth Soviet Realist paintings and a towering statue of Lenin – the kind that was toppled after 1989 all over the eastern bloc.
Against this, the United States set a circular building designed by Edward Stone with a large round opening in the roof, a circular pool to catch any rainwater and sunshine and show it off, and a round platform stage in the middle. When we entered, the US navy band based in Trinidad was playing mellow and joyful calypso tunes on steel drums.
Cultural studies had not yet been invented, but even without them, the performance must have done much to sweeten the image of America.
John M Ridland
Santa Barbara, California, US
Military interference
It is troubling to think what might happen should we in Britain elect a government genuinely opposed to the Thatcherite regime(Corbyn ire at army chief’s comments, 13 November). In recent weeks we have heard from one general who has threatened to put tanks on the streets; and another who has suggested he might challenge the authority of the prime minister.
The armed forces are sounding more and more like the military wing of the Conservative party. Can we expect what are now commonly referred to as “forces loyal to the regime” to assert themselves ever more brutally in this country? Are we on the way to becoming a banana republic? But without the bananas.
Stephen Tompsett
Winchester, UK
India’s pantry cars
Re: the phasing out of pantry cars on Indian trains (13 November). On a hot summer’s day in 2001, I was travelling from Delhi to Agra by train with friends to visit the Taj Mahal. My fondest memory of the journey started with the pantry boy greeting us with a complimentary bottle of water and a paper.
Soon after, wafts of sweet chai and aromatic spices came as if from the depths of the carriage. After the train took several minutes rolling out of the city and into the outskirts dotted with slum houses, the pantry boy made his return and I was given a metal tray with a delicate and still hot masala omelette with a piece of fresh roti. He then assured me that a hot cup of sweet milky tea would follow and very efficiently served the next guests behind.
When I read that the Indian Railway plans to replace these delights with a menu that consists of pizzas, burgers and other European food to meet the varied gastronomic taste, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Carol Lim
Sydney, Australia
Briefly
• Hakan Ludwigson may be a great photographer but he appears to have failed to learn the language of the Australian outback, bush or never-never (13 November). We do not have ranches, we have sheep or cattle stations or runs; we have cattlemen, not ranchers, and jackeroos and jillaroos, not cowboys – except, perhaps and regrettably, at rodeos.
Phillip Mackenzie
Gosnells, Western Australia
• Russia may be guilty of systematic state sponsored doping of its athletes and their participation in the 2016 Olympics may be under review (13 November). But this was only possible because corrupt members of the IAAF cooperated with Russia in covering up the failed drugs tests.
Surely, athletics as a whole should be excluded from all future Olympic Games until athletics can show that it has cleaned up its act.
Alan Williams-Key
Madrid, Spain
• Sex the preserve of the young? (13 November). Just you wait! With hindsight the preserve of the young is holding on to a job and hoping the kids get an education. So advancing age is not deprived of sex; in fact some time also seems spent in reliving and regretting what turned out to be past lost opportunities, in that era when one was taught to consider consequences.
So the spirit remains willing, and we pray for the flesh.
E Slack
L’Isle Jourdain, France
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