JULIAN Thake and I would probably agree about Munich (You Say, Friday, August 13).

Where we differ is in the lessons we draw from it.

At the end of the First World War, nobody made any sort of peace overtures to Germany. Instead, the defeated foe was humiliated and impoverished from reparations and left to suffer the consequences.

This was not unlike the way the US left Afghanistan to rot after the Soviets were driven out. From the chaos and confusion, Germany produced Hitler and Afghanistan the Taliban.

Europe woke up to Hitler when he invaded Czechoslovakia. Afghanistan suddenly became important after 9/11.

In both cases, co-operation and rebuilding with economic support when it could have made a difference (and prevented the holocaust) many years beforehand were disregarded.

The consequences were two defeated nations seeking redress from a hated world by turning on it using violence.

The Europeans learnt the lesson and it led to the creation of what is now the EU. The US participated in it with Marshall Aid as it did with rebuilding Japan.

Then, during the Cold War, the Americans regressed to militarism, ignored the hand of friendship from democrats like Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran and Achmad Sukarno of Indonesia and backed dictatorships in those countries instead. Another such client dictator was Saddam Hussein.

If Mr Thake sees al Qaida's goal as "the overthrow of liberal society and values", has it occurred to him that many Muslims might see Bush's and Blair's goal as the overthrow of Islam and its values?

Mr Thake's vision of a global Caliphate is as absurd as the alleged conspiracy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for world domination.

There is huge hunger and goodwill among the 200+ nations of the world for peace and co-operation because the globe and it's environment cannot accommodate the luxury of wars any more.

That is from where the drive for peace must come, from the UN, not from superpower unilateralism.

PETER NIELSEN,

Worcester.