MISTAKES IN MIDDLE EAST

BRIAN Livesey’s remarks about both the Tory and Labour being warring governments and that Britain is the second largest arms exporter (‘ Our arms are always at

war,’ November 25) may in some way be correct.

If Britain was to stop selling arms it wouldn’t make the world any safer. It would certainly greatly increase Britain’s unemployment rate and make Britain financially poorer.

Between 1970-1990 both Britain and America sold very little weaponry to Saddam Hussein. During that period the USSR and France and West Germany were the largest exporters to Saddam, along with Brazil, Italy, and countries who always claim that they are neutral such as Sweden and Austria, to mention only two.

I believe that the second invasion to remove Saddam from power was a mistake, brought about mainly by the lies about Saddam’s alleged chemical weapons and other related issues. But the biggest mistake was that there was no strategy for what would happen after he was removed from power.

Something that has since caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary casualties, and not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East, and some people would say in other regions of the world today.

The main problem isn’t just the military conflict in Iraq and now Syria etc; it is that nobody has a positive solution on how to stop these growing tragedies.

It’s not the weapons. As they say, there isn’t a gun yet that has killed somebody, it’s the finger that pulls the trigger that kills. Mr AP Moxham via email