Hear All Sides

WAR ON TERRORISM

I WAS dismayed to read the New Year's Day editorial naming George W Bush as The Northern Echo's man of 2001.

This is the man who was brought to power by a travesty of democracy and has unilaterally torn up the Kyoto agreement and the anti-ballistic missiles treaty.

You praise him for showing restraint in responding to September 11, but his wait of a few weeks does not alter the fact that the action he did take was ill considered, vengeful and murderous, and will do nothing to make the world a safer place.

It is a serious mistake to imagine that there is a finite number of terrorists and that if only they could be rooted out, killed or captured, the world would be free of them.

Wherever people feel oppressed or persecuted, there will be a minority who will seek to improve their lot through violence.

If further injustice is perpetrated in opposing them, they will be replaced faster than they can possibly be eliminated. - Pete Winstanley, Chester-le-Street.

HUGH Pender (HAS, Jan 3) seems to have immersed himself completely in the fashionable 'blame the victim' ideology.

It is almost indecent for him to refer to September 11 as offering a wonderful opportunity. Does he really think that diplomacy and economic pressure will have the slightest influence upon suicidal fanatics?

Like Mr Pender, I do not want anybody to get killed, but if the US had taken no military action, does he really think that the terrorists would have taken early retirement after their September success - or would we already have seen further terrorist outrages? - E Turnbull, Gosforth, Newcastle.

I FEEL it is time to fully support DW Lacey of Durham (HAS, Jan 4). Hugh Pender's views on the war on terrorism and the Palestinian situation are both offensive and narrow minded. I suggest Mr Pender visits New York and spends time with the relatives of those whose lives were tragically taken by Taliban-backed terrorists.

What he fails to realise is that the attack of September 11 was not just an attack on the US but an attack on Western civilisation and democracy, of which, it saddens me to say, dear old Hugh is a part.

So, instead of boring us all with your sad rhetoric, please remove the blinkers, smell the coffee and get a life. And if you don't like the way this country treats terrorists, then by all means feel free to move to Afghanistan or Palestine. I dare say that you and your kind won't be missed. - David Lythe, Willington, Crook.

POSTMEN

IN REPLY to Rob Richardson (HAS, Jan 2) regarding the appearance of Bishop Auckland postmen, I would like to say the postman who delivers the mail in all weathers in this area is polite and always has a smile. To me, it is not the uniform but the person inside it that counts. - F Dixon, Bishop Auckland.

ROB Richardson (HAS, Jan 2) seems to think Consignia would give a better service if its postmen dressed smartly, did not wear baseball caps and, presumably, had short hair, though I assume postwomen can have long hair and still do a good job. Our uniform, including baseball cap, is regulation and some postmen have long hair, but how does this lead to a poorer service?

We deliver six days a week in all weathers, each bag weighs up to two-and-a-half stone. The average is six bags every day.

These combined factors may not always let us look our best, but our service is excellent.

There may be room for improvement, but posties should not be scapegoats. Time will tell if the service would improve if Consignia lost its licence, but change is not always best, as Railtrack has shown.

Maybe customers will have to pay for a PO box and collect their own mail from the nearest depot. Expensive probably, inconvenient certainly, but at least those encounters with long-haired, baseball cap-wearing postmen would be a thing of the past - a small price to pay for some, I suppose. - Moira McKay, Bishop Auckland postlady.

FLUORIDATION

FLUORIDATION of our water supplies is in the news again and Northumbria Water is right to say its "business is the supply of drinking water and is not one of mass medication".

Fluoride should not be added to drinking tap water unless the public ask for it.

There must be freedom of choice. I cannot understand why the consumers living in Gateshead and Newcastle, as well as outlying districts, persist in drinking tap water when scientists, doctors and dentists throughout the world cannot agree on the safety of fluoride, which is not an essential nutrient.

No animal or human study has demonstrated a disease related to fluoride deficiency. But it is well-established that fluoride is potentially toxic to most living things.

According to a Canadian government report, fluoridation probably does more damage than good. - AL Wilson, Whitley Bay.

ULSTER

HISTORY books are indispensable when it comes to considering the troubles in Ireland. Whether or not the IRA has justification for hating the British can only be answered by studying Ireland's chequered history.

Maybe Peter Mandelson (Echo, Dec 29) in his assessment of "freedom fighters" has studied Irish history and got it a bit wrong.

"The Protestants in Ireland incontestably dominate a conflict which they can't control," wrote academic Tom Nairn.

Nationalism in Ireland is inextricably linked with the poverty-stricken past of agrarian Southern Ireland which was contiguous with the affluent industrial Northern Ireland. Nationalism personified this divide.

Ireland has changed a lot since those times. It is just that the IRA has a long memory. It is living in the past. - Alfred H Lister, Guisborough.