UNDER the headline 'Missile warning system will help UK' a misguided interviewee suggests there is a change in US policy from offensive to defensive and Britain, as well as America, needs protection from 'rogue states' (May 5). Rubbish!

The recent slaughter in Serbia and Kosovo, the bombing of Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Lebanon, the invasion and occupation of Panama, the funding of apartheid in Palestine, and military interventions throughout Latin America are all unavenged.

How, if these 'rogue states' are incapable of one gesture of defiance or retribution, can they be capable of launching missiles at the United States?

The US seems immune to any form of retaliation. All those 'weapons of mass destruction' that Saddam Hussein has held onto (despite eight years of intrusive humiliating weapons inspections and ten years of intermittent targeting by 'smart bombs') seem incapable of harming one US citizen.

Despite the cruelties and humiliations heaped upon the people of Iraq, not one explosive device has been exported to Britain or the US. The proposed missile defence system cannot be intended as protection from such regimes.

If this sinister Star Wars programme were purely 'defensive' the US and its lapdogs in Whitehall would be dismantling their nuclear weapons completely.

No longer would they need to rely on the insanity of 'mutually assured destruction' nor would they need the capacity to destroy all human life on Earth six times over.

The truth is the US wishes to reinforce its domination of the planet by forcing China, and possibly Russia, into another dangerous and wasteful arms race.

R Westmoreland,

The Oval, Pocklington.