Doubts in action

IN trying to justify Western military action in Afghanistan, Brian Carson (Letters, 5 March) makes much of recent military intervention by the West as an antidote to terrorism and other unwelcome presences.

His interpretation of events is one option.

There is also the one that sees the same intervention as imposing military rule, abusing indigenous social structures, carrying out breaches of international rules of behaviour, and other misdemeanours emanating from these same interventions, including empowerment of people more easily manipulated by the occupying powers as replacement for the previous rulers.

Whether countries subject to these interventions have evolved as more or less messed up than before is a matter of opinion, and little heed has been paid to the opinions of the surviving residents of those same countries.

Maybe an opinion poll on gains and losses, improvements and damages, upgrades and downgrades consequent on the interventions, put to the residents of such countries, would be a better judgment than any of us are capable of.

Ian Johnstone

Forman Drive

Peterhead