Letter: Choices facing Nato

Sir: David Aaronovitch, sick of the "stink of attitudinising", tells us that he is prepared to fight, as if this point should strengthen his argument that British troops should be deployed in a land war in Kosovo ("My country needs me - and the cause is worth fighting for", 6 April)

"What would I myself be prepared to sacrifice in order to stop the massacres and to strike an immense blow against the politics of racial and ethnic nationalism?" he asks.

There are countless painful questions which this present disaster poses but this is not one of them. The key issue is, is it right in the present circumstances to kill and destroy? Soldiers don't get a say, so we must have ours.

I'm sorry that Mr Aaronovitch finds that attitudinising about war stinks. It is, after all, what he does.

DUNCAN BAIN

Oxford