I AGREE with Ben Eaton (You Say, March 12) that it was right to fight the Second World War.

I wonder, though, how he can square that with his view that we should not act against modern-day Hitlers until we can treat "all evil rulers" the same, especially considering our alliance with Stalin in that war.

I also agree with Mr Eaton that we should not draw parallels between 1939 and the current Iraq situation. The parallel we should draw is with the 1920s and 30s, when the world could have stopped Hitler and didn't.

Nineteen-thirty-nine showed what will happen if we repeat the mistakes of history, which we can still avoid doing.

Mr Eaton's letter provides a good illustration of the knots into which well-meaning, intelligent people like he tie themselves when they decide from the off that they won't have armed intervention against Saddam at any price.

They end up trying to hammer inconvenient facts into a shape that fits their preconceptions, rather than the other way around. Unfortunately that didn't work in the 1930s and it won't work now.

JULIAN THAKE,

Worcester.