Letter: Send in the troops

Sir: Nato's use of massive air strikes against Yugoslavia will be seen by much of rest of the world as huge overkill against a small nation which is fighting, however savagely, for its own sovereign territory.

A better way to deal with the crisis would have been to deploy troops in Kosovo. Troops could have guarded the indigenous civilian population, and kept the KLA in check. Massive use of air power will undoubtedly seriously weaken the Yugoslav army, but will not stop its infantry burning villages in Kosovo unless it faces ground troops too.

If the West isn't willing to put its soldiers' lives on the line, then why are we bothering with the whole business of Kosovo anyway?

The absence of United Nations involvement serves notice that the organisation has latterly turned into a body for rubber-stamping resolutions against the West's antagonists when required.

HOWARD GETHIN

Bristol