Simon Jenkins is right to denounce bombing as almost always immoral and useless, as the UK bombing of Syria proposed by Mr Cameron will unquestionably be (The dangerous delusion of drone bombs, 18 September). But he is wrong to ascribe the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo in 1999 to the threat of a Nato land invasion: the Serbs knew perfectly well that there was no unanimity in Nato in support of such a military operation despite Mr Blair’s enthusiasm for it, that the US Congress would never have agreed to it, and that it would have been impossible without US participation.

The Serbs climbed down only when President Clinton acknowledged to Russia’s President Yeltsin that there could be no solution without Russian involvement. Washington and Moscow agreed on a radical replacement of Nato’s ultimatum, and Russian and American diplomats Viktor Chernomyrdin and Strobe Talbott, with the great Martti Ahtisaari, then president of Finland, took it to Belgrade. Once they saw that Russia was backing the revised plan and would participate in its implementation, the Serbs caved in, as was inevitable.

Three months of Nato bombing had achieved nothing except the killing of innocent civilians, economic destruction and the acceleration of Serbian ethnic cleansing. The eventual settlement could have been reached without a single bomb had the western powers been willing at the outset to accept Russian participation in drawing up a practical plan and in its implementation.

There is a vital lesson in this sorry saga for the search for a settlement in Syria now. The keys are acceptance by the US and its allies of the involvement in an eventual settlement of both Russia and the Assad régime. Without both there will be no settlement and the appalling refugee crisis will continue to get worse.

Brian Barder

London

• Paul Mason asks “four questions we need to answer before bombing Isis or Assad” (G2, 21 September). A fifth question is decisive for me: what would such bombing achieve? It would kill and cause destruction. There is, however, no possibility that it would achieve any military result whatsoever or change the political situation on the ground. That is why, following Ed Miliband’s wise lead, I voted against it two years ago in the Commons, and why, if it is proposed, I shall vote against it this autumn, as I hope will once again be the official policy of the Labour party.

Gerald Kaufman MP

House of Commons

• Julian Borger and Bastien Inzaurralde (West ‘ignored Russian offer for Assad to step down as president’, 16 September) report the former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari’s claim that the west failed to act on a proposed “three-point plan” to end the Syrian conflict put forward by Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin in February 2012. But this sits poorly with the historical record.

On 4 February of that year Russia and China vetoed a security council resolution proposing a peace plan for Syria. Explaining the Russian vote, Churkin stated that “members of the international community have been undermining the possibility of a peaceful settlement by advocating a change of regime”. So if Churkin was suggesting removal of Assad three weeks later, this represented a dramatic volte face.

Perhaps this was the case, but if so it was not “ignored”.

As Borger and Inzaurralde note, the Geneva Communique was agreed four months later, on 30 June, and this incorporated all of Churkin’s points: immediate cessation of violence in all its forms; negotiations between all parties; the formation of a transitional government that could include members of the present government and the opposition, formed on the basis of “mutual consent”. By this point, however, Russia had swung back (if it had ever swung any other way) to opposing the removal of Assad – a position it has maintained ever since.

Brian Slocock

Chester

• Natalie Nougayrède is unable to conceive of peace in Syria without regime change (Let’s not be suckered into playing Putin’s game in Syria, 19 September). It is precisely this precondition that has stymied peace negotiations in the past. Rather than play Putin’s game, she would have the west play a zero-sum game – at the expense of the Syrian people.

Syria has suffered enough, and no new regime can possibly be worth the destruction its people have already suffered. It is time for western politicians and commentators to compromise on their foreign policy objectives before Syria’s once thriving state infrastructure and multicultural society disappear altogether.

Peter McKenna

Liverpool

• It is time to deploy a military solution for Syria. No, not that one. The responsible and humane means to manage this forced exile is to use Nato/UN to facilitate transport, shelter and food for the refugees. A temporary, short- to mid-term solution. Only coordinated military support can help to prevent further despair, mistreatment, exhaustion and deaths of the millions of people fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Before the EU, such rescue efforts depended almost entirely on individual communities’ goodwill and actions. What is the EU for? What will history make of the two choices we have: another geopolitical war, with no hope of achieving peace; or an acceptance that the west is part of this problem, and the vision to see the good that comes from helping when needed?

Dr Nick Mann

London

• Whenever we hear our government telling us that we ought not to know what is being done in our name (Attorney general refuses to reveal his advice on Syria drone killings, 16 September), we would do well to recall the words of the MP Percy Molteno in the only parliamentary debate before Britain declared war on Germany in 1914. He argued that it was vital that we “should give the people of this country a chance to decide”, and that “[the nation was witnessing] a continuation of that old and disastrous system where a few men in charge of the state, wielding the whole force of the state, make secret engagements and secret arrangements, carefully veiled from the knowledge of the people…”

This, and a lot more little-known information on the road to the first world war is given in Douglas Newton’s book The Darkest Days. As the UK is being coaxed along the same sort of road towards yet another war, his conclusions bear thinking about.

Simon Barley

Bradwell, Derbyshire

• It has been established in open court that it is illegal to fly a drone over tourist attractions and football grounds (Report, 19 September), yet we can’t be told if it is legal to use drones to execute our own citizens without trial.

Nik Wood

London