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TERRORISM

YOUR leader (Echo, Sept 17) made a cogent case for US restraint and it was supported by two of the five letters that day.

America's grief and rage are understandable and all of us share their sorrow. However, there may well be an impulse to lash out in retaliation even though the precise identity of the perpetrators has not been established.

Morally and politically, that is not the way to go. Effective counter-terrorism must exclude the over-hasty retaliatory cycle of violence, fuelling more violence especially if such a 'retributive mission' is indiscriminate. This has happened before with dire consequences.

The US search for a strategy of active defence should avoid the dubious logic and legality of branding an external terrorist attack as war. War it is not.

An urgent search to find out just who is responsible and to identify culprits makes two lines of judicial approach possible: (a) the bringing of individuals before a United States court, (b) if a host-state is identified then its terrorist-clients can be brought before an international Lockerbie-style court.

Counter-terrorism can then proceed politically against any state harbouring terrorists. The United Nations, the European Union, and Nato have all devised and ratified strategies and actions.

Political and economic measures include international censure, institutional expulsion, economic boycott, and round-the-clock surveillance. - DJ Whittaker, Richmond.

PRESIDENT Bush has inherited a lot of the trouble from when Bill Clinton was in charge of poor surveillance by the Americans. Texas oil wells could be next.

How do the refugees get thousands of pounds to pay for false passports, etc coming from very poor countries? - N Tate, Darlington.

AT this time of fear and apprehension, people need not only information about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and about those responsible, but also very strong spiritual and philosophical sustenance.

I suggest that television channels and radio stations have a daily five-minute slot when leaders of major religions and philosophies would give words of comfort and reason. This could be before or just after the main news.

Let voices for tolerance be heard routinely so people may be encouraged to live at peace and not use this atrocity as an excuse to attack verbally or physically those of different colours and cultures. - Joan Sinanan, York.

THE horror of the American atrocity is as much over the scale of the human tragedy in its individual stories of suffering and heroism as it is over the audacity of the attack.

The days since last Tuesday have been filled with those stories. Of desperate calls on mobile phones and loving messages on answer phones.

Not just America has suffered loss. A high proportion of those missing have come from this country.

This tragedy, caused by the worst in human nature, has brought out the best. The tales of heroism are remarkable. They give us comfort in humanity at a time of despair.

The response has been extraordinary, too. The world has been united - not just the political leaders, but ordinary people.

But, along with the grieving and sorrow, there is a demand for something to be done about the religious fundamentalism and fanaticism which threatens the world.

It is not Islam which caused the tragedy in America, it was insanity of a belief which cares nothing for human life.

The response must not be revenge. It must not be hysterical. It must not be about demonstrating the power of bombs. That would only create more martyrs who would do something similar to the New York atrocity in years to come. - DT Murray, Coxhoe, Durham.

SMOKING

BEN Williams (HAS, Sept 13) is right and smokers are less productive and efficient at work.

They take time to get out their drugs, and then the matches or lighter. Some even find an ashtray and at the end of their drug intake have to stub it out.

Any of them running out of the drug will do anything to get some, even nipping out to the shops; if they are not allowed to contaminate the atmosphere in the workplace they will spend more time in a lavatory indulging.

There are very few anti-smokers and these are people who have watched their loved ones die a painful and slow death because they were unable to break the drug addiction as most smokers cannot.

You can learn to smoke in a few weeks but it will take several years before you can break the addiction.

Most non-smokers are not "anti". They just don't want inflicted with the same diseases that smokers contract. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

ABANDONED CARS

THERE was a time when a car, left on the side of the road, was stolen from the spot, or stripped, or both.

Now as I travel around the North-East, I continually see cars just abandoned, sometimes there for weeks with police markers on them. Abandoned cars are getting to be an eyesore, like old houses, and no one seems to care.

Surely the owners of these cars could be prosecuted. I know it must be difficult to find out who drove it last, but the police do have a forensic force behind them. It can't be that difficult to find out the last owner, or does that come under advanced training in the police force? - JA Stott, Oakenshaw.

DOG SHOW

DARLINGTON Council may have reaped rewards in the coffers from the recent dog show in South Park. But where were the environmental officers who fine local residents for leaving dog dirt uncleared?

Admittedly, it is put in bags, but then dropped alongside the cars in the car park for the next car to run over. One skip was provided if you were lucky enough to see it. - AR Tatman, Darlington.