Pre-emptive strike
Sir: In his criticism of western military action in Bosnia, Simon Jenkins ('We should beware the laptop bombardiers', 23 April) 'In some areas we're reverting to traditional methods. Nurse Jones here has trained to be a leech.' draws parallels with the disastrous US-led operation into Lebanon in 1982. However, Lebanon also provides a rarely cited, but equally valid, historical precedent for the success of foreign military intervention.
In July 1958 some 14,000 US Marines landed in Beirut after hostilities had erupted between Muslims and the Chris- tian-led government of President Camille Chamoun. The Americans succeeded in restoring order and withdrew their forces by the end of the summer, effectively pre- venting a civil war which later consumed Lebanon in 1975 and lasted more than a decade.
Could a similar use of western military ground forces at the outbreak of fighting in the former Yugoslavia not have prevented the present conflict in the same manner?
Richard Beeston
The Times, 1 Pennington Street, London El
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