Madam, - I must protest at Kevin Myers's description of the Spanish government as "quislings" (An Irishman's Diary, September 8th).
We don't know how many people changed their voting intentions after the Madrid bombs any more than we know what was in the minds of the terrorists. However, the Aznar government's refusal to allow the possibility that al-Qaeda was responsible for the atrocity because it feared the effect on the voters only added to its reputation for arrogance - an arrogance that had led it to support Bush in Iraq, against the wishes of the vast majority of the Spanish people.
Is Mr Myers seriously suggesting that the new government should have gone against its own beliefs and its promise to the people of Spain?
Mr Zapatero said after his election, "You don't defeat terrorism by fighting wars". The wisdom of that statement is becoming clearer all the time. As Max Hastings wrote in his mercifully unhysterical article last week (Opinion, September 7th), it is "paramount to focus vengeance on the guilty".
It is a pity that all three of your pundits who write regularly about these matters (Messrs Myers, Waters and Steyn), seem to be under the illusion that the American neo-conservative approach is the only one, and that people who hold different views are foolish or contemptible. - Yours, etc.,
MICK NOLAN, Roveagh, Kilcolgan, Co Galway.