Madam,

I am truly shocked at Mrs Hughes’ letter (Great deal of thought will have to be given’) which indeed needed a great deal more thought before it was written and, now that it is published, it needs a great deal of thought to work out however the views it expresses could still be held.

After 20 years of disastrous wars involving British forces in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya and in Syria, here is a Gwynedd councillor, representing Llangelynnin, thinking that 16-year-olds should be allowed to join military organisations whose remits include war, killing, mayhem and organised legalised murder.

Mrs Hughes puts the weight of her county councillorship behind the letter.

Goodness, when will we ever learn that war is not the way to resolve conflicts? It is not the first resort nor the last resort. It is a so-called solution that creates more problems than it solves.

It is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, it is the beginning of the age of insuperable problems, as all the wars I mention above, every one ever in Africa and the endless conflicts in Israel-Palestine and in Vietnam, spawned by the outcome of WW2, so amply demonstrate.

Wars are always part of a vicious cycle. The wars we have perpetrated in the Middle East result in revenge terrorism across Europe, which results in more war in the Middle East, and so on.

The very process of war is never just about killing the bad guys. So often the good guys behave abominably, as Dresden and Hamburg in World War Two prove.

My father was in the Royal Artillary and was nearly court martialled for blowing the whistle on the maltreatment of German prisoners of war in Northern Ireland.

You can’t have war unless you have individuals willing to undertake it. We don’t need any such people because we don’t need war, whether undertaken by 16-year-olds or 106-year-olds.

War was never the best time of anyone’s life and something better than military life is easy to offer 16-year-olds because almost everything you can think of is.

Shame on you councillor, for using the fact that you represent the people of Llangelynnin to try to prompt militarism. It is a wrong, deeply wrong, deeply immoral view and dishonestly supported here by Mrs Hughes as if it were the view of those she represents, when she was returned unopposed and got not a single vote. It certainly was never any part of the platform she stood on.

Yours etc,

Ian MacIntyre, Shelbourne Court, Barmouth.

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