Letter of the Week

Rod of correction

Sir Rodric Braithwaite's summary of Afghan history suggests that our diplomats “lie abroad for their country" too long to sustain objectivity (Cover Story, 25 January). He fails to mention that the Soviet invasion of 1979 resulted from a well-baited US "bear trap". The west armed the mujahedin only to fight a proxy war. When the Soviets withdrew, Afghan factions, armed by external sponsors with differing agendas, began an immensely destructive civil war. Zbigniew Brzezinski, interviewed in 1998, expressed pride in the strategy, dismissing the deaths of more than a million Afghan Muslims, mostly civilians. "What is more important to the history of the world," he said, "the Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?"

The Afghans have many reasons to distrust western motives. Sir Rodric is at least right in pointing out that after any military withdrawal we owe it to the Afghans to continue to help them repair the ravages of three decades of violence.
Howard Horsley
Much Wenlock, Shropshire

Steady, Mehdi
The usually super-savvy Mehdi Hasan is wrong on Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 (Dissident Voice, 25 January). If 20,000 men cross the frontiers of a sovereign state, while an air force bombs civilians and a fleet sails to bombard the enemy coast, most of us thinks that's an invasion. Hasan writes about “the traditional Tory school of scepticism in international affairs". That gave us appeasement of apartheid, support for Pinochet, a knighthood for Mugabe and a blind eye as 8,000 European Muslims were killed one by one at Srebrenica. I thought the NS was against tyranny and dictators and Tory appeasement of both?
Denis MacShane MP
House of Commons
London SW1

Profit warning
David Miliband (Cover Story, 25 January) says "the great mass of the fighters [insurgents in Afghanistan] are driven by pride or the pursuit of profit or power". Is this not the eternal motivation of politicians everywhere? Is not Miliband's article designed to conceal this truth and to promote an opposite view: that our involvement in Afghanistan is motivated by both the needs of self-defence at home and the interests of the Afghan people?
David E Clarke
London N4

Write-off
Something has gone wrong in British intellectual life if David Marquand's slovenly "review" of The Principle of Duty - originally published more than 15 years ago and now reissued in the Faber Finds series - can pass for serious comment (Books, 25 January). It is too personal, and as he appears - in a muddled way - to agree with many of the things he attributes to me, his abuse is puzzling. I'm also sorry to see a man who held an academic position in the past express himself so wildly.
David Selbourne
Via email

Fruitless task
I agree with John Pilger's criticisms of Israel (World Citizen, 18 January) and the condemnation of the practice of meeting every critical comment with accusations of anti-Semitism, but Israel is not the only government guilty in the Middle East. A cynic would suggest that we call for a boycott of Israel because we can do without the grapefruit but we cannot do without the oil.
J Seery
Middleton St George

Hair apparent

Gideon Donald has rather missed the point about David Cameron's airbrushed hairstyle (Preparing for Power, 25 January). The Tory leader is becoming follicularly challenged and, as Donald notes, the British electorate doesn't do bald. There is a third way. The last PM to have a beard, Lord Salisbury, was a Tory. By growing one, Dave can revolutionise his image and return to tradition.
Keith Flett
London N17

Feast of Stephen
Delighted to see Andrew Stephen is writing in the New Statesman again about politics in the US. I so missed his sagacious articles.
Peter Bennett
Norwich

Cheque point
Sarah Churchwell notes (Books, 18 January) that Sarah Palin considers balancing a state budget to be much the same as balancing the family chequebook. Now where have we heard that one before? Small wonder Palin makes us left-of-centre Brits feel queasy.
Jennifer Akdemir
Bath