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Eastbourne Gazette, Wednesday 7 July 2010
Perilous fantasy
IN HER Gazette letter (June 16 - Why should we bear cuts burden?) Dorothy Forsyth cites Trident, Britain's nuclear weapon system, as a worthy target for the Cameron axe.
True, this would save us forking out huge sums on something we just can't afford. But it would also have a healthy effect on our collective mind. It would quash, once and for all, the fantasy that somehow nuclear weapons protect us.
Nuclear weapons target defenceless civilians in unspecified countries thought to be a possible military threat. They also play havoc with reason itself.
The phrase "our nuclear deterrent" is a case in point. Lumps of hardware and plutonium are treated not as things but as concepts.
Time and again non-nuclear states have cocked a snook at the nuclear-armed ones.
Israel faced extinction in 1973 and Scud missiles during the First Gulf War. British sovereign territory was invaded by Argentina.
In these, and many other cases, nuclear weapons were irrelevant. And yet some of us still cling on to the false comfort blanket of nuclear deterrence.
The financial situation is an opportunity to put away childish fables and recognise nuclear deterrence for what it is: a perilous fantasy with no substance

George Farebrother
Summerheath Rd, Hailsham
Eastbourne Gazette, Wednesday 16 June 2010
Why should we bear
cuts burden?
 Why should ordinary people bear the brunt of the cuts caused by the banks?
  If we need to save money, then the government should cut Trident expenditure and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq.
   Many surveys and demonstrations show that this is what the people want.
Dorothy Forsyth
Chair Eastbourne for Peace and Liberty, Meads Road, Eastbourne
And interestingly a letter from someone not in EPAL about Afghanistan
Eastbourne Gazette, Wednesday 7 July 2010
Pull the troops out
As yet another four soldiers are killed in Afghanistan it is surely time to pull out our troops.
    To pretend they are there to prevent terrorists being trained to make explosive devices for use in the United Kingdom is a travesty.
     Even if we conquered the whole country and held it with an army of occupation, it would not prevent bombs being made in the United Kingdom or terrorists being trained in Pakistan or elsewhere.
     So far over 300 servicemen have lost their lives and probably ten times that number have been horribly maimed.
 Our brave soldiers do not deserve to die for a hopeless cause. They should be withdrawn at once.
Philip and Sylvia Hague
St Anne's Road
One Letter stimulates another
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