With the impending war with Iraq, should not we remember the failings in the Vietnam conflict, which has many parallels?

On July 21, 1954, at the Geneva Conference, a peace treaty was signed that called for general elections to be held in Vietnam under the supervision of an international control commission. The elections were never held.

The then secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, backed a referendum (rigged) in Saigon that put Ngo Dinh Diem, a friend of the Eisenhower administration, in power.

Elections were postponed and all political opposition was jailed. When asked for an explanation, the reason given was: "If the elections were not prevented, our US ability to get certain things we need from the Indo-China territory and from South East Asia would cease."

This was done under the banner of freedom and democracy, the only green light the Americans needed.

The late folk singer Phil Ochs once said "It is the old who lead us to war but it is the young who always fall" - and fall they do.

Like followers of the Pied Piper, thousands upon thousands of young Americans, some not old enough to vote or drink beer, were drafted from their homes and, within 16 weeks, flown 18,000 miles away to face a hell they had never dreamed of in a country they had never seen.

Of those, 58,022 were brought back in body bags. For what?

If we want to learn from past horrors, we should look at this and take stock. However, our political leaders are generally too hell-bent on fulfilling their power and political greed to worry about the views, worries or pain of the very people who put them in power.

-Mick Venour, Southon Close, Mile Oak