I ADMIRED another brilliant, cutting-edged piece of journalism from David Pratt (“UK politicians fiddle while the body count in Syria rises”, The Herald, October 14). He rightly condemns the British political bickering over the Russian airstrikes on Syria as pathetic; but even more pathetic is the plight of innocent people who are being blitzed with bombs in Aleppo.
It is skin-crawling to contemplate the images of that ruined, ravaged city, and as Mr Pratt so despairingly writes, "what we are witnessing is a cynical game of international geopolitical chess where the pawns are Syrian civilians". The suffering of these poor people who are being bombed, gassed, starved and burned is almost beyond belief, and if the best Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson can come up with is to call for demonstrations to be held outside the Russian Embassy perhaps he should set an example by leading a demonstration, and taking along with him the other 300-odd Conservative MPs.
Maybe Bob Dylan could write an anthem for Aleppo, but in the meantime I am reminded of the first two lines of Holding Out For A Hero: "Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?"
Ruth Marr,
99 Grampian Road,
Stirling.
DAVID Pratt writes: “Just as the Nazis operated in support of Franco in the 1930s, so the Kremlin acts today in support of Syrian dictator President Bashar al -Assad”.
To illustrate how difficult it is to deal with them, he might also have written “Just as the Soviets operated in support of Hitler from 1939 to June 1941, so the Kremlin ….”. And that led after June 1941 to the irony of ironies, always ignored by those who fail to appreciate the appalling choices forced by realpolitik, of our need to accept as an ally one Nazi (as Stalin undoubtedly was, despite his current rehabilitation) in order to rid the world of another.
It does however seem astonishing that in the recent Kerry/Lavrov ceasefire negotiations, no thought appears to have been given to avoiding “accidental” strikes by either side or establishing any kind of hot-line to minimise the diplomatic fall-out should such incidents occur.
John Birkett,
12 Horseleys Park,
St. Andrews.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here