Thaksin's divide-and-conquer tactics never seem to end. To go out to speak to the rural, farming poor and blame the urban, educated middle class for the nation's problems only promotes disunity among the people.

What's next? Will he propose a Khmer Rouge-style purge of Bangkok residents by the poor farmers of the Northeast? Maybe a purge of all the people who make the country function will improve the condition of the masses. Thaksin is working strictly from his playbook, misleading the poor and uneducated and marginalising the people who may effectively check his power. Even worse, he seems to have drawn inspiration from Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il and Joseph Stalin in drafting his play book.

Yai

Bangkok

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Select EC commissioners through a referendum

Re: "Supreme Court to pick nominees for new EC today", News, August 10.

Leaving the selection of Election Commission commissioners to the Supreme Court judges is a mistake. More than half the 43 candidates for the EC are judges. Supreme Court judges are to select a short list today. The political impasse has lasted many months and caused a growing nation to scale back trade and development. Given the significance of the EC, commissioners should be chosen by the public in a nationwide vote.

Lakh Gahn

Bangkok

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Fugitive wolf's offspring could cause new troubles

Re: "Wolf back behind bars", News, August 7. A disturbing point to consider concerning the escaped wolf from Chiang Mai Zoo that has now been recaptured. According to the papers, the wolf had apparently mated with local dogs during its 30 days of freedom.

I don't recall if the wolf was male, or female, but the authorities should be cognisant of two points. One, if the wolf is female, then any litters of pups can be controlled at the zoo. But if the wolf is male, the authorities must closely watch any litters of local dogs for the next few months for half-breed wolves that could become vicious on reaching maturity.

Charlie Brown

Chon Buri

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New airport could use a little more disobedience

Re: "Union 'no' to Sept 15 airport move", News, August 10.

Thai Airways' labour union is to be applauded for the stand it has taken to protect the interests of the company and its passengers. Its courageous public stand on the issue serves as a much-needed display of professionalism and social responsibility to be emulated by high-ranking government officials and public-enterprise executives who cater to every prime ministerial whim with unabashed sycophantic devotion.

The union's stand brings to mind an extract from Napoleon Bonaparte's "Military Maxims and Thoughts" on the necessity of disobedience (with adaptations in parentheses) that should be read and pondered by the PM's underlings:

"A commander-in-chief [manager] cannot take as an excuse for his mistakes in warfare [opening of Suvarnabhumi Airport] an order given by his minister [boss] or his sovereign [boss's boss = prime minister], when the person giving the order is absent from the field of operations and is imperfectly aware or wholly unaware of the latest state of affairs. It follows that any commander-in-chief [manager] who undertakes to carry out a plan that he considers defective is at fault; he must put forward his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's [Suvarnabhumi Airport's] downfall."

Nick Probono

Bangkok

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Singapore's problems go beyond the nanny state

Re: "Media: don't mess with Singapore", Editorial, August 9.

In your interesting and accurate editorial, I saw the oft-repeated statement that Singapore was a "nanny state". This is not a nanny state; it is a police state that strikes fear into everyone. Singaporeans do not get welfare from the state, unlike their counterparts in the West. As a Singaporean who has seen two generations not getting the opportunity to climb the social ladder, I can say that not all Singaporeans are as rich as the foreign media claims they are. Only the government and its supporters have money, most of the citizens do not. We Singaporean citizens do not get hand-outs, and our workers at the bottom of the ladder are paid as badly as your workers are, in comparison with the expense and standard of living. If we don't have jobs, we starve. But of course, foreigners don't often see or read about that in the media, locally or abroad. Singapore a nanny state? I don't think so.

Real Justice

Singapore

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It was awful choice to make, but the A-bombs spared lives

Re: "Legacy of Hiroshima should ensure that nuclear weapons are never again used in war", Letters, August 9.

So the argument goes on. Was the Hiroshima bomb necessary? A better question might be was it effective?

Mr Bill claims there was some hidden agenda in the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Permit me to present an alternate view and proffer an answer.

In answer to his posit, he might listen to President Harry Truman explain it in his own words. "Having found the bomb," Truman said, "we have used it ... We have used it to shorten the agony of young Americans."

Now there are those, including former Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, who say the atom bombs were not necessary, because the war was ending anyway. The A-bombs, he said, "made a difference at most of two or three weeks". But at that time, with no surrender on the horizon, the kamikaze continued to strike, sinking American vessels - the Indianapolis was sunk, taking the lives of 880 young Americans, and Allied casualties were running at 7,000 a week. Two more weeks meant 14,000 dead and wounded; three more weeks meant 21,000.

During the intervening period between the Nagasaki bomb and the final surrender on August 15, the war went on as usual. On August 12, eight American flyers were executed (beheaded). The USS Bonefish went down with all of its crew. The destroyer Callaghan went down, and the destroyer Escort Underhill was lost. That's just six days of allied agony we are asked to disregard if we accept the waiting period proposed by the bomb apologists and Mr Bill.

It is also a forgotten reality today that in 1945, the entire Japanese populace was held in the thrall of an immense military machine. The Japanese had a preinvasion patriotic song, "100 Million Souls for the Emperor", and it meant just that. A universal and national kamikaze was a direct threat and the explicit intent. Further to this debate, the Japanese government announced in 1945 that all Japanese women from the ages of seventeen to forty were to be called up to repel the Allied invasion.

In addition, Japanese prison-camp commanders received a significant order in 1945 from Japanese Field Marshal Terauchi Hisaichi that unequivocally stated that the moment the Allies invaded the main Japanese islands, all prisoners were to be killed. This field command is also a matter of record. I submit that the bombs saved not only the prisoners lives, but also the lives of millions of truly innocent Japanese civilians who would have certainly perished in this failed attempt at empire - a lost cause.

Finally, the bomb was not dropped without warning. Fully two days before the bombings, more than 700,000 leaflets were dropped over Japan warning the people to give it up (as was promised in Potsdam) or be utterly destroyed and obliterated. They failed to heed the warning.

I suggest Mr Bill reconsider his take on history. If we are to follow his line of reasoning, then we have to accept the preposterous assumption it would have been better for America and its allies to suffer thousands of additional casualties, in order to save enemy lives. Some wars are better lost than won. World War II is a classic example.

D Ross

Bangkok

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A clearly defined Palestinian state is best hope for peace

Re: "Redefining borders would not appease Israel's neighbours", Letters, August 3.

Josh Baker's pro-Israeli stance contains certain inaccuracies. Baker is incorrect, for example, in claiming, "Israel offered to return all of the conquered land from the 1967 war in exchange for peace with its neighbours." In fact, Israel never wanted peace except on its own terms, which included complete control of the so-called "promised land". Yitzhak Rabin, the only Israeli prime minister who legitimately sought peace, was killed by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.

Also, there is no evidence to suggest "Israel never intended to build extensive settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel did, in fact, build extensive settlements. Whether or not this was on land "not being used by Palestinians" is irrelevant. Israel's main objective was to occupy the land and intimidate the Palestinians into leaving. To this day, Israel refuses to allow the Palestinians the right to have their own sovereign state. The problem began when the International community, out of pity for Adolf Hitler's atrocities against the Jews, granted Israel sovereign status after World War II. The only possible solution today is for the international community to grant Palestine sovereign status and impose definite borders between the two nations, using international peacekeepers to enforce the treaty. While neither side will accept any terms in this generation, the goal is to keep the peace until a new generation is born without the inbred hatred both sides now possess. Only then can peace have a chance.

Josh Andover

USA