The phrase "and pretext for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a justification or excuse for an action or behavior that may not be genuine.
Example: "He used the meeting as a pretext for avoiding his responsibilities."
Alternatives: "and excuse for" or "and justification for".
Mutilation of the host by local Jews — a standard accusation, and pretext for persecution, throughout the Middle Ages — was blamed for the hemorrhaging.
Even the delivery of more lethal weaponry to the opposition resolves nothing, because it could end up with the wrong people, and because it allows scope and pretext for the regime's supporters – notably Iran and Russia – to balance it on the other side.
A magazine assignment is the means and pretext for him to enjoy the whoop-de-doo that is Venice ("the most there place on earth," he notices in a rare aperçu), to consume boundless quantities of free drinks and drugs, to schmooze with his peers (never his betters), and perhaps — a desperate fantasy, which improbably comes true — to fall in at least physically requited love.
"The legal quibbling, precautions and pretexts for insufficient action are not acceptable".
The most famous wall of the 21st so far has not yet been built, but already symbolises a more subtle but equally important division in modern politics: between those who are willing to confront and concede the nuance of most problems of government, and those who think (or say they think) that such intricacies are excuses, and pretexts for delay.
In 2001, Fidel Castro criticized that covenant, saying it "could serve as a weapon and a pretext for imperialism to try to divide and fracture the workers, create artificial unions, and decrease their political and social power and influence".
As the political and constitutional battle between reformists and Islamists comes to a head, the US intervention is a distraction and a pretext for muffling dissent.
But like the brutal, brawling sport that provides Mr. O'Connor with a backdrop, a storehouse of metaphors and a pretext for staging some viscerally effective fight scenes, "Warrior" possesses surprising poetry and finesse.
It becomes YouTube fuel for protest across the Islamic world and a pretext for killing American diplomats.
Aurora is a symbol of awakening womanhood and the pretext for one of the classical ballet's most beloved spectacles.
Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "has been a cause and a pretext for delaying democratic change," contended Ms. Khalaf Hunaidi, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents.
