Afghanistan

FIRST, we were told that the Taliban's main income was from heroin, but later we learn that the Taliban had all but eradicated heroin production, and that almost all the heroin exported from Afghanistan came from areas held by our new-found friends, the Northern Alliance.

Soon, we hear of victory in Afghanistan but, months later, we learn that thousands of Taliban and al Qaida fighters still hold out in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan.

Next, Downing Street tells us that al Qaida has a laboratory producing chemical and biological weapons.

Osama bin Laden incites his followers to kill Americans wherever they are, portraying them as corrupt infidels, the enemies of Islam. He has much in common with President Bush and Tony Blair: all rely on misinformation to maintain support for their wars, and send others out to kill and be killed.

They are unlikely to tell us the truth about Iraq, either. - Pete Winstanley, Chester-le-Street.

TONY Blair, our incredibly nave Prime Minister, has walked wide-eyed into a clever trap set by President Bush.

The almighty US army, navy and air force apparently cannot dislodge a few hundred Afghan fighters from their mountain strongholds.

So Bush requested our marines, thereby drawing us deeper into a conflict, the resolution of which seems as far off as ever.

The British public will be reluctant to criticise this action for fear of being seen as unpatriotic.

Mr Blair is so desperate to feed his own ego that he is blind to the truth.

Afghanistan, despite a few of our soldiers helping out in Kabul, is in the grip of several warlords who are out of the control of the occupying forces.

There no journalists brave enough and honest enough to tell us the truth of what is going on in Afghanistan. - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

ONCE again the Americans are doing it, starting a fight and, as soon as they start to send body bags home, they want to run away and have someone else do the fighting for them.

In the 1960s, in Vietnam, it was the Australians they talked into fighting for them.

Next, they went to the Lebanon to protect their Jewish friends. A lorry bomb went through the camp gates, detonated, they lost men, so they all went home again.

Their next attempt at sorting out a troubled country was Somalia. Same again. They lost men so they all went home again. The only time they win is when they go and fight some South American banana state, protecting their interests again.

Our MPs should look at history and get our servicemen out of Afghanistan before the Americans go home again and leave us there. - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

WEST CORNFORTH

THE village of West Cornforth is to install closed circuit television in the high street. People passing through the village will obviously think West Cornforth has a high crime rate.

Let me say West Cornforth probably has less crime than surrounding villages. The CCTV will give the village added security.

I may be biased, but I think it may not be idyllic but what it lacks in beauty it gains in character. The camaraderie and togetherness is almost tangible.

West Cornforth has some pleasant shops in the high street. New houses are under construction near the old Regent cinema, a new doctor's surgery is to be built on the old workingmen's club space.

Sedgefield District Council has done a marvellous transformation in the village. The parish council should be thanked for playing its part. - James Taylor, Coxhoe.

EUROPEAN ISSUES

EUROPEAN Union fanatics would have us believe that membership is a foregone conclusion.

Certainly, a substantial proportion of the electorate - a majority, according to some research - does not see it as settled.

As well as being very costly, membership is daily diminishing our democracy, allowing the politicians to insulate themselves ever more effectively from the harsh winds of accountability to the people they rule.

It allows discredited politicians a recipe for success.

The EU is yesterday's answer to last year's problems and small countries, such as Switzerland and Norway, prosper happily outside.

It is simply defeatism that asserts that Britain, the fourth largest economy on the planet, does not have the option of running its own affairs.

It is the same defeatism, indeed, that lay behind the misconceived drive towards membership 40 years ago. - James Fitzpatrick, Gateshead.

NOT content with the charges of selling out the people of Gibraltar, this loathsome regime is adding buying out to the charge sheet.

At the behest of Tony Blair and Jack Straw, their masters in Brussels, ie the European Commission, are set to bribe the people of Gibraltar to give up their preferred status of British.

It was agreed at the EU summit in Barcelona that the sum of £33m is to be made available to pay for new roads and infrastructure.

However, the money will only be forthcoming if they vote in a referendum to give up their status as a Crown Colony and elect for Spanish sovereignty. Looked at another way, £33m is £1,000 each for Gibraltar's 30,000 inhabitants.

There are no lengths to which Mr Blair and his acolytes will not go to severely punish anyone who shows loyalty to the Crown. The appeasement of IRA terrorism over the patriotic loyalist population in Northern Ireland is past testimony to this policy.

Even though the stated preference of Gibraltarians is to stay British (in excess of 97 per cent) the process of surrendering them to Spanish sovereignty will be relentless.

The combination of Mr Blair's hatred of his own nation and its constitution and the virtual tyranny of the EU should fill us all with foreboding of treachery yet to come. - Dave Pascoe, Press Officer, UK Independence Party, Teesside Branch.