The UN Should Consider Lives of People in Peacekeeping Efforts

Regarding the front-page article "UN Weighs All Options as Iraq Tests Cease-Fire," July 22: I feel impelled to register a decided protest against the casual disregard of human suffering reflected in the statement increasingly being made in connection with current international strife. Typical is the statement: "The Security Council is weighing all its options, including military actions such as a possible air strike." An "air strike" is nothing but a euphemism for showering down death and destruction on hundreds or even thousands of innocent civilians.

It appears that the majority of United States citizens, having never experienced the horrors of war in their own country, fail to appreciate the full force of such a blithely mentioned option.

After decades of propaganda for peace, it is quite shocking to me, a British expatriate living in central Europe, to note the enthusiasm for warfare recently revived in the US and elsewhere. Christian Zander, Vienna, Austria

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