Military solutions never bring peace – but western leaders refuse to learn

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Sunday 12 September 2021 18:21 BST

Protesters take part in an anti-war rally in London (Getty)

As the world gets ever smaller, mainly due to the rapidly approaching climate crisis, I find I am reminded of my conclusions drawn from the 9/11 attacks. As I marched in London in 2003 with a million or more people from hugely diverse backgrounds, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to stop the US and the UK invading Iraq, I realised that politics, especially the western variety, has no idea how to promote peace. I spoke with many marchers, all of whom agreed that military solutions never truly bring peace.

Military solutions always inflame situations. Put simply, you cannot bomb an ideology into submission or obliterate terrorism by shooting it. Western political leaders are so far removed from the realities of life they are incapable of dealing with the never-ending cycles of war that dominate our existence.

Steve Edmondson

Cambridge

Tennis triumphs

Someone needs to tell asylum seekers that one sure way for immigrants to avoid Priti Patel’s inhumane policies would be to teach your daughters to play tennis.

G Forward

Stirling

Congratulations to Joe Salisbury with his astonishing achievement in winning both the men’s and mixed doubles at the US Open. Further congratulations to Gordon Reid and Alfie Hewitt for winning the wheelchair doubles.

Richard Roberts

Address supplied

National insurance confusion

I must take issue with Richard Smith (‘Boris Johnson can’t be trusted with our money’, Letters, 12 September). National insurance is insurance only in name. He paid his forebears’ old age pension. His children pay for his. His children’s old age pensions will be paid by his grandchildren. Not only is there no state pension pot, “national insurance” is a gigantic Ponzi scheme, misunderstood by the bulk of the population, the money going into general taxation.

Marina Donald

Edinburgh

Landlords are unfairly vilified

So Keir Starmer suggests taxing private landlords to pay for social care, while in Scotland it seems the SNP will likely dance to the far-left tune by capping rents.

All well and good, you may think. Surely landlords are greedy Rachman types ripping off tenants in slum-like conditions? But what if the reality is that many landlords own just a couple of well-maintained flats, which they’ve worked hard to buy to supplement their lacklustre state pensions? And what happens if, as a consequence, landlords feel their cash would be better invested in, say, the stock market and choose to sell up? Sadly, tenants are evicted, their properties bought by owner-occupiers and the pool of rental properties for the less well-off – those Starmer seeks to assist – is significantly reduced.

Tad more head-scratching to do, chaps?

Martin Redfern

Melrose, Scottish Borders

Too much froth

I’m rather older than Will Gore (‘Am I Starbucks’ most conservative customer?’, 12 September) and certainly remember coffee being treated with suspicion by my parents when I was a child. I don’t think they ever really got to grips with it. However, coffee is one of the things that should not be messed with (bread and butter pudding is another). There are only two acceptable versions: cappuccino and espresso.