Nip terror in the bud
Sir: Correlli Barnett would have us believe Con Coughlin is suffering from paranoia and describes George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ as stale rhetoric (Letters, 2 February). One wonders what ailment Correlli Barnett suffers from — perhaps ‘paranoiac denial’ is a fair diagnosis. Could he inform us which countries, if any, with sizeable Muslim minorities are free of religious conflict? The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand, India, the Middle East, Western Europe, all are in turmoil to a greater or lesser degree. As he says, in Britain there have so far been only ‘occasional acts of terrorism’. This is thanks to the efficiency of our security services, certainly not to any shortage of numbers sympathetic to the slaughter of us infidels. Most sensible people would agree a potential contagion is best nipped in the bud, rooted out and ‘smashed’. Mr Barnett writes glibly about a sense of proportion. Would it be permissible to ask if he has ever experienced terrorism in the raw: the killing and maiming of relatives and friends?
Terrorism is now global, mostly Islamic in origin. It is interesting that during the 1970s, whatever one’s views about his internal politics, President Vorster of South Africa said something like this, ‘If the Western Powers persist in their policy of defending terrorism when it occurs in countries like South Africa and Rhodesia, but only condemn it when practised by the IRA in Britain or by Gadaffi of Libya when targeted at America and Europe, the time will come when international terrorism will engulf the world.’ That time has sadly now come to pass!
R.L. O’Shaughnessy
Hadleigh, Ipswich
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