On Friday, February 13 and Saturday, February 14, was the 70th anniversary of the two night bombing of Dresden in which 25,000 people were killed mainly civilians.

The official aim of the saturation bombing of German cities, of which Dresden was the last to suffer, was to produce 'a state of terror by air attack'

What after 70 years can we learn from this? First, that the most dreadful terrorist acts are the work of states. In the scale of terrorist atrocities 9/11 is far below Dresden. Second: that no states ever admit to committing war crimes: such crimes are always committed by other states. Dresden was without doubt a war crime by any objective criterion — but neither Britain nor the US will ever admit it. Third, that if you claim (as people do) that the wickedness of a regime justifies massacring civilians (old and young, the disabled and the sick) who have no responsibility for that wickedness and, indeed, are not infrequently the victims of it themselves, then you are helping to undermine your own society. For no society can flourish unless it holds some values as absolute and not to be compromised under any circumstances. Thus Britain and the US, using the same kind of arguments which were used to attempt to justify Dresden, now practise or collude with torture and resort to imprisonment without trial. And this is a new and sinister development.

Malcolm Pittock

Bolton.