I SYMPATHISE with Parisians and with President Hollonde. His response to the recent attacks was conventional and understandable. My criticism is not intended to make things even more difficult for him. I do wish, however, that instead of promising to be “merciless” in response, he had promised instead to be “merciful”.

Certainly we should do everything possible to catch the perpetrators, but we should also maintain those standards of civilisation which are so obviously lacking in the behaviour of the terrorists. When possible, do not kill, put on trial – even if that is awkward and prolonged. We must, I feel, display infinite patience. I suspect that the terrorists want to engender outrage and a response born of desperate anger. Without offering them forgiveness, we should nevertheless try to understand their warped sense of injustice.

We should make clear that we do not suspect all Muslims of being potential terrorists. We should try to analyse the psychology of the terrorists as we would try to understand the behaviour of lethal viruses and try to work out how to vaccinate others against infection. That is, we should try to ensure that our response does not cause more of the same behaviour among others, of substandard mentality, who might be giving consideration to joining the terrorist organisations.

Hugh Noble
Appin

WHILE I’m horrified by the attacks and deaths in Paris, I am disappointed to see so many posts and mainstream media suggest this is linked to the Syrian refugee crisis, without a shred of cohesive evidence.

There seems to be a collective amnesia around the history of terrorist attacks in Europe, all of which occurred before the Syrian crisis. Those horrific attacks in London, the attack on Glasgow airport, the bombing of the Spanish train, all took place well before Syria.

I’m also struck by the thought that a refugee travels thousands of arduous miles to seek refuge, arrives in a country essentially empty-handed, but is able to acquire guns and explosives and grenades within weeks, and organise a co-ordinated attack in a city they’d barely know?

I’d also aver, the sooner folk stop prefixing the word “terrorist” with religious handles, the sooner we can understand the real nature of the religions the mainstream media and far-right groups seek to demonise.

We witnessed the stark hypocrisy of mainstream media in the case of Michael Piggin, an English youth who was convicted of making pipe bombs to attack Mosques in Leicester, and Denbigh ex-mayor John Larsen, jailed for 18 years for bomb explosions – not a single reference was made to their religious beliefs and neither was labelled a “terrorist”.

We saw the same cynical use of prefixes with the recent Rotherham paedophile ring. While I have absolutely no sympathy with the offenders, the highlighting by the press of their country of origin again gave ammunition to hate groups.

However, when the following paedophile ring was reported in the press – John Denham, 49, from Wiltshire; Matthew Stansfield, 34, from Hampshire; Adam Toms, 33, from Somerset; Christopher Knight, 35 from Manchester; Robin Hollyson, 30 from Bedfordshire; David Harsley, 51; from Hull and Matthew Lisk, 32, from East Sussex – not a single mention of their race or religion was made!

I know I’m probably swimming against the tide here, however; I’d say the sooner we see individuals for what they’ve done, not what their religion is, the sooner we can reduce hatred in our society.

Piers Doughty-Brown
Glasgow

OUR First Minister is to be congratulated on her balanced and compassionate response to the terrible events currently unfolding in the Middle East. It is deeply heart-warming to see her taking the lead in unreservedly welcoming our quota of tragic refugees, themselves fleeing from the unspeakable terrors of Daesh, to find shelter, safety and security amongst us here in Scotland. Equally, she rightly expresses the deepest compassion for the victims and families of the recent and quite appalling terrorist atrocities in Paris.

While the situation in the Middle East is one of great complexity, we should nonetheless recognise that it was very largely Bush and Blair’s folly, in embarking on their invasion of Iraq, which initiated this predictably disastrous chain of events. When the report of the Chilcot Enquiry is finally published, it is widely expected that Tony Blair will be roundly condemned. At that point he should be required to face trial for his involvement in war crimes at an international court. Only such a move might go some way to resolve the tragic aftermath of these terrible happenings.

Alan Johnson
Largs

THE horrific scenes of bloodshed which filled the streets of Paris were truly shocking.

The immense sympathy for the victims and the terrible suffering that their families will endure does not relieve us of the responsibility of assessing the source of this tragedy. If, as seems likely, the attacks were carried out by Daesh or a similar militia, the hundreds of dead and wounded in the streets of Paris are victims of imperialist wars in the Middle East, waged for cynical geopolitical ends, that are now spiralling out of control.

Twelve years ago, when the Bush administration launched an illegal invasion of Iraq, the French Government, foreseeing the disaster that would flow from the war, refused to participate. The reintegration of France into Nato’s military command in 2009, followed by its decision to join the United States and other Nato powers in Middle East wars in 2011, has proven to have disastrous consequences.

The French political establishment backed Islamist militias in proxy wars for regime change in Libya and Syria, encouraging its citizens to join these militias by widely presenting them in the media as “revolutionaries” fighting Gaddafi and Assad. Now these forces, trained to carry out terrorist attacks and guerilla warfare in the Middle East, are returning home. This has created a political environment in which terrorism can flourish and spread rapidly, and as a result the war has come home to France.

Since the Kouachi brothers waged their deadly terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, the ruling elite has reacted to such dangers not by shifting away from the policy of war for regime change in Syria, but by building up the state’s anti-democratic police powers.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

PARIS has been chosen for this sad display but they will not be alone in mourning their unexpected, undeserving dead.

Civilised people have to learn to pay the price for the actions of their uncivilised governments.

The West has been harassing, killing, robbing and displacing people in the Middle East for hundreds of years but it is hard not to get angry when these people strike back. However, our anger should be reserved for Cameron and his predecessors, for they have relentlessly interfered for centuries and those chickens are coming home to roost!

Many more will die on all sides before this ends, and Westminster is quite without wit or wisdom in this regard. Resolving the Palestinian issue will start the mending process but that demands open honesty, admission of mistakes – and where in the Westminster system would we find that?

In sorrow for Parisians.

Christopher Bruce
Address supplied

FRIDAY’S front page photo and report that 46 per cent of Scots don’t know who Kezia Dugdale is surely hits out at the wrong target (Kezia’s latest woe, The National, November 13).

Given that public engagement in Scottish politics is at its highest for decades and we are perhaps on the threshold, give or take a few years, of a momentous decision to attain independence, isn’t it a matter of great concern for all of us that such a high percentage of the electorate are so ill-informed?

The National, and no doubt a majority of its readers, myself included, support an independent Scotland. This does not make it alright to constantly rubbish a brave woman trying to rescue the Labour Party in Scotland.

David Mellor
Lochwinnoch

FIRSTLY Graeme Goodall claimed that there was no official enquiry into the downing of MH17 (Letters, November 9), now he claims that it was somehow the wrong one! (Letters, November13.) Could this be because it has delivered an unambiguous conclusion which he would prefer to wish away?

The Dutch were granted the authority to investigate the cause of the crash by the democratically-elected government of Ukraine on its behalf, as was their right. This was done principally because of the better technical resources available to the Dutch, but also out of respect for the large number of Dutch victims involved.

Mr Goodall also claimed the Russians had not blocked investigations into the disaster, an assertion which even the most elementary of internet searches will reveal to be incorrect.

Lastly, in regard to another correspondent’s questioning of my veracity in respect of the Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria, a simple internet search on the subject I performed just before sending this letter returned 9,100,000 hits on the subject. I encourage any interested reader to do the same for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

Robert J Sutherland
Glasgow


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