Hear All Sides

WAR ON TERRORISM

RATHER than labelling opponents of the Government's anti-terrorist proposal as nave, the Prime Minister should consider what he is asking.

The Government's proposed Anti-Terrorist Bill affects the privacy and liberty of private citizens in ways that have nothing to do with the fight against terrorism.

The most serious question is the right to judicial review for suspects who could be held without trial under the Bill. After all, many of us know of the frustration with the Greek authorities holding the group of plane-spotters without trial.

The terrorists will indeed have won if the rule of law and the liberty of individuals are destroyed. This opposition is not naivet Mr Blair, it is in fact the true fight against terrorism. The terrorists win if the rule of law is weakened. - Diana Wallis MEP, Yorkshire and the Humber.

THERE appears to be some difficulty in determining what exactly is meant by the term terrorist.

I have now worked it out, at least to my own satisfaction. A terrorist is a person who belongs to a religion which has not changed since the Middle Ages, who has grievances, real and imagined and, being unable to afford to buy a tank, helicopter gunship or fighter plane from the US, decides to wrap himself in gelignite, which he can afford, and blow himself to bits with as many of his perceived enemies as he can.

Now, a non-terrorist is a man who may or may not belong to some religion who flies in an aeroplane, (generally American), over a country that he hardly knew existed until recently, which has hardly advanced socially since the Middle Ages and drops on the citizens thereof, most of whom have never heard of New York, from a great height, weapons of awesome destructive power.

Unlike the terrorist, the non-terrorist I have described will return to the US with acclamation and be probably rewarded with a medal.

I hope I have now made this terrorist business quite clear. - Willis Collinson, Durham.

PETE Winstanley seems to have commandeered the Afghan conflict, judging by the number of letters he has written on the subject, all deriding the West for defending itself.

Yet he wrote not one letter when, in 1979, Russia invaded Afghanistan, with no protection whatsoever, fought for ten years, killed over one million Afghans, flattened one third of Afghan buildings, and left without providing any aid whatsoever for the two million refugees it created.

By contrast, Osama bin Laden declared holy war on America and its allies in 1995, told his followers to kill Americans wherever they were in the world, vowed to annihilate Jews and Christians, and deliberately drew America into war by bombing two American embassies, an American ship, the Pentagon, the World Trade Centre and making an attempt on Camp David.

If America had not fought back, he would have continued his attacks, because he wanted a war with America.

Pete Winstanley seems to be suffering from a great deal of twisted thinking on this subject. I would suggest that in future he remains as silent on the American conflict as he did on the Russian one. - Mrs C Dent, Hetton-le-Hole.

JL Thompson derides the 'Stop the Bombing' campaign but hasn't done enough homework.

Who started this latest conflict? Not America or Britain, he writes. Is he aware of Bill Clinton's claim to have sent a hit-man to kill bin Laden three years ago?

We need law, not gang warfare, to contain thugs, or we reduce ourselves to their level.

Neither the West nor the UN acted during four years of Taliban brutality to the Afghans, but when American skins became at risk a move was made.

But instead of police-type intervention, we saw the usual USAF terror-bombing convert a desert-economy into a dustbowl.

Vast numbers of Afghans surviving air strikes will die of hardship as refugees, and the West won't bother for they aren't members of our tribe.

As the Pope has said: "Wars often cause further wars." Western action against the Russians imposed the Mujahadeen on Afghanistan, which spawned the Taliban. Similarly in Iraq, the US and UK supplied Saddam Hussein with ingredients for the gas attack on Halabja, killing between 5,000 and 20,000 Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

Around 600,000 Iraqi children died of avoidable illness in the 1990s, thanks to a satanic co-operation between Saddam and the West. - Councillor Frank McManus, Longfield Road, Todmorden.

THE views expressed by Bill Warrington and Pete Winstanley (HAS, Dec 4) are rubbish.

When they suggest a public inquiry into the Afghan war, do they think the Americans and the various factions in Afghanistan would oblige?

As for the suggestion that bin Laden should be brought before a court of law, this is a case of delusion and the sort of mumbo jumbo that ignores the facts.

To sit in their comfortable homes and rail on about what is an issue that will not be solved from the pulpit, is insulting, and can made no sensible contribution.

The British contribution to the war on terrorism in Afghanistan is hardly worth the bother, yet to suggest we call a public inquiry is absurd and simply a desperate appeal that can only be called illogical, sermonising rubbish. - John Young, Crook.

I FIND the Rev J Stephenson's opinion (HAS, Dec 7) that "military retaliation solves nothing" rather perplexing.

If my memory serves me right, it was the courage and bravery of a generation of young people taking up arms that stopped Hitler and his Third Reich goose-stepping terror over the place -- certainly not obscure vicars preaching from pulpits. - WD Craig, Billingham.