THE only parallel I've drawn between the 1930s and the campaign against Saddam is to point to the danger of acting too late against dictators.
Mr Spiteri (You Say, Monday, April 14) still labours the point for lack of any respectable argument. He must be the last person left who thinks that Chamberlain's kow-towing to Hitler at Munich was an example worth following, or that Saddam deserved "civility".
Yes, we supported Saddam in the past - though not nearly as heavily as Russia or France - just as we supported Stalin (Saddam's idol) against Hitler, in both cases when the opposing danger was seen as greater.
Yes, I reluctantly supported UN sanctions against Saddam in the hope of avoiding worse. Mr Spiteri has still to explain what he'd have done instead.
I'm not about to lower the discussion to Mr Spiteri's level by questioning his Christianity as he questions mine. Suffice it to say that I agree with Edmund Burke that "for the triumph of evil it is only necessary for good men to do nothing".
Unlike Mr Spiteri, who does nothing but carp from the
sidelines, I don't feel doing nothing is an option which I - as a Christian - can accept.
JULIAN THAKE,
Worcester.
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