Madam, - Like all your correspondents, I unreservedly condemn the atrocity at Beslan. I also think the war on terror is a necessary evil to defeat Islamic extremism. However, I cannot see how Beslan offers any post-hoc justification for the invasion of Iraq, Putin's repression in Chechnya, or Sharon's colonisation of the West Bank.
Some writers to this page should learn to distinguish cause from effect. After 9/11, we were told that the war on terror was a "new" type of war to be waged with special forces, sophisticated surveillance, intelligence gathering and propaganda. It was not supposed to involve Abrams tanks rolling through the streets of Najaf or Fallujah. Bush, Putin, and Sharon have hijacked the war on terror to pursue other agendas, and the gainers have been the terrorists.
I am also suspicious of the motives of people who conflate "Islam" into a mass of anti-Western fanatics, as Kevin Myers and John Waters seem to do. The war on terror is a clash within civilisations, not a clash between civilizations. R.M.Cuddihy's mention of Hezbollah and its one-time leader Hussein Mazzawi (September 14th) is a good counter-example. It is easy to quote some blood-curdling statements from Hezbollah, which was founded by Iranian militants and fanatically opposed both the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the ill-fated US intervention there. However, since the Israeli withdrawal, the organisation within Lebanon has almost ceased to sponsor violence, and has become a quasi-political organisation offering social services for poor Shias. According to Adam Schatz of the US journal The Nation, its spiritual leader, Hussein Fadlallah, was the first cleric in the Islamic world to condemn 9/11, and its current leader, Hasan Nasrallah, accepted that an Islamic state would never be the democratic wish of the Lebanese people. This suggests that there is no Islamic monolith supporting terrorism.
The evils of communism were opposed not by massive invasions and "hot" wars, but by containment, patient, competent intelligence-gathering, counter-subversion, covert actions and the "war of ideas". I support the war on terror in principle, but if it involves a "Fortress Europe", more crusades, more Grozhnys, more Sabras and Chatilas, more Abu Ghraibs, then count me out. - Yours, etc.,
TOBY JOYCE, Navan, Co Meath.