IT IS difficult to say whether Chris Titley is nave, stupid or deliberately perverse.

Whichever, he is definitely wrong when he says "lovely sticky oil is not at stake in this conflict" (Evening Press, March 29).

The sole purpose of the Americans is to appease Muslim Arab oil states and maintain its supply of oil.

America doesn't need the oil, but if it uses Arab oil then its own reserves will be there when the rest of the world has run out.

The rest of Europe is doing what it is told to preserve the banana market or whatever trade threat America chooses to present.

After the Bosnia settlement a British television report showed how Croats were being trained and led by retired American generals to attack the Serbs.

The Americans had already destroyed the Serbs' arsenals, so when the attack came they could not defend themselves.

Ethnic cleansing of the Serbs followed and 6,000-plus disappeared.

No one is being sought for this by the War Crimes Commission. I wonder why?

Isn't it also strange that when Kosovo is the Serb homeland nobody in the free world media asks the question why only five per cent of the population are Serbs?

The answer is of course that they have been ethnically cleansed for centuries.

I don't condone what the Serbs are doing but I do understand it. Like the Jews in Israel they are making a final stand.

As for America they should sort out their own affairs. Ethnic cleansing spells Wounded Knee.

To many this means the end of the 19th century.

To native Americans it also means the 1970s when the FBI killed as many, if not more, than were killed in the more infamous battle.

These Indians, like the Serbs, were defending their holy ground ceded to them by treaty which the US government wanted to revoke unilaterally because the land is rich in radioactive ore.

Land of the free and home of the brave? I think not!

K Barnes, North View,Catterton, Tadcaster.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.