Sir, – Due to my somewhat naive outlook I had hoped that the disgraceful notion "The Americans had it coming to them" would not reach as far as Farnham. However any naivete on my part pales into insignificance next to that of Harry Holmes (Herald, October 19).
His appalling attitude makes the anti-American rhetoric from the likes of Romano Prodi, and the other EU
politically correct busybodies prior to September 11 look tame by comparison.
What Mr Holmes and others like him fail to appreciate is that the liberal pacifist views that he holds are not shared by the likes of Osama Bin Laden and the other cruel fanatical despots around the world.
True, the Afghan people are suffering during this military action and we should all have every sympathy for them, but they have suffered dreadfully for over 20 years, most of that time under a brutal medieval religious fundamentalist
government that has no regard for human rights and has no place in the modern world.
What we are dealing with here is a regime that is totally unreasonable, fuelled by
religious intolerance and
willing to commit the most
horrifying acts of attrition without pity, remorse and any delusions of morality.
My parents' generation learned the hard way – much to their cost – the dangerous mistake of attempting to appease a fanatical dictator. The Taliban regime and the terrorist network it supports has got to be dismantled and regrettable though it is, the only practical way open to us at the moment is military action, because if we simply do nothing, this thing will destroy us all.
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