Letter: Nato, judge and jury

Sir, Your leading article (10 May) invokes the Blair doctrine ("Failure to do good in one part of the world does not excuse inaction in another") to "robustly reject" accusations of double standards. Of course intervention everywhere would mean war everywhere, goes the argument, but this is a "special case".

However, this argument is a smoke-screen concealing how human rights abuses by Nato-compliant Balkan states like Croatia and Turkey are not only excused but actually assisted by Western policy. No one has demanded humanitarian war everywhere, but the Blair doctrine assumes a judge-jury- executioner role for Nato based on "our" moral superiority. Whose? Tony Blair's? Mine? Turkey's?

It is not human rights but Nato compliancy that decides whether you get bombed or helped by Nato in response to your repression.

NEIL TURNER

London NW1