Spotlight on Britain's shameful reputation

In little over a decade Britain has enjoined the destruction of Afghanistan, the illegal invasion and decimation of Iraq and the destruction of much of Libya.

With Britain's connivance two legitimate leaders have been little less than lynched, with William Hague now declaring another leader, President Bashar al-Assad - whose country's sovereignty and territorial integrity (as was Iraq's) is guaranteed by the UN - must go.

The litany of torture allegations and extra-judicial murders by our and the US's "boys" is not abating (and as a "coalition" Britain shares guilt in allegations levelled at US troops).

Iran, another country not massing on our borders to invade, is also threatened.

Our Defence Secretary now advocates bombs over butter and suggests cutting the Welfare bill to pay for the bombs.

In Iraq, between the embargo and the invasion, both enthusiastically supported by Britain, the upper figure of excess deaths is three million.

The invasion has created a million widows, nearly five million displaced and nearly five million orphans - thought to be the highest number of orphans in proportion to the population of any country in the world.

Over the the last and other decades, Britain is certainly exceptional in one league, not human rights but wars of aggression, Nuremberg's "supreme international crime."

Felicity Arbuthnot

London E9