I always enjoy reading the letters from regular contributor Axmed Bahjad, as it would seem he has such a wealth of worldly knowledge and is someone who always writes something worthwhile reading.

I particularly enjoyed his letter (SA November 11) ‘War generated wars’ as I couldn’t agree more or written a better account of the causes of WW1, and as Mr Bahjad rightly pointed out, the profit made by the bankers of the day, sadly caused such profligacy in terms of the loss of human life.

Sadly the ‘war to end all wars’ turned out to be nothing of the sort, as we now see wars happening across the planet for similar reasons, in that it generates untold millions of pounds of profit for armament manufacturers, along with big banking corporations that are heavily invested in them.

This is nowhere more apparent than what successive US administrations have done both in the 20th and 21st centuries by invading countries at will, with or without the sanction of the UN. This would also account for the continued existence of NATO which should have been made a redundant organisation following the disillusionment of the Soviet Union back in1989.

This has a lot to do with the electoral process of the US, as only those individuals with enough financial backing behind them have a cat in hells chance of making it to a presidential seat in the White House, and so it is the armament manufacturers that do so much to influence the situation. To use the analogy, of the ‘tail wagging the dog’ the armaments companies more or less dictate US government policy along with world military policy to whoever is the incumbent administration of the day. This situation is so very similar to that which Mr Bahjad mentioned, concerning vast profits being made out of war, with the resultant loss of lives and suffering of the populations.

G A Woodward Nelson Street Swindon