Similarly, attempting to engage in any sort of dialogue with the terrorists is futile.

Osama bin Laden is an uncompromising psychopath who sees mass murder and negotiation as one and the same thing.

The solution must surely lie in starving al-Qaida of its most potent weapon — suicide bombers.

Letter writer G. M. claims that Muslims should be indebted to our foreign policies.

I fail to see how slaughtering 100,000 Iraqis and destroying Fallujah, one of Islam’s holiest cities, constitutes doing Muslims a favour.

Furthermore, the Government continues to stand idle as Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes in the West Bank in order to create illegal Jewish settlements.

As for Yugoslavia, our intervention in Kosovo had nothing to do with protecting Muslims and everything to do with opening up the country to private investment.

If we are to starve bin Laden of the suicide bombers on which he relies, we must adopt a more balanced foreign policy and show young Muslims we are all on the same side when it comes to creating a more peaceful world. — R. M.

IT IS breathtaking to think that anyone, bar the usual attention-seeking, high-profile malcontents, should seek to claim the London bombings were a justifiable response to British involvement in Iraq.

Colin Forrest, from Friends of the Earth, suggests in his letter that the “ultimate blame” for this event lies with Tony Blair. Dermot Sullivan argues in his letter the attack on London is proof “we are paying the price of war in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

Their arguments, ones of cause and effect, are highly-flawed.

Even the least competent historian can track the dates for the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq as having taken place after, not before, the September 2001 attack on New York.

If the London bombs were a reaction to British foreign policy, why are there casualties from so many other countries and religions among the 50-plus dead and 700 injured? — S. M. T., Dundee.

I THANK friends and neighbours who assisted my dog Kelly when she was brutally kicked; also to the team at Parkside vets who tended her and the people who wrote to the Tele showing their concern. Kelly is on the road to full recovery. My heart goes out to Margaret Hay and family whose dog Derry died as a result of a hit-and-run accident. — Harry Inglis.

He was not of my political persuasion, but I had to admire his sincerity.

He saw war first hand (he served in the Second World War) and believed in the United Nations and European unity.

Also under his premiership, wages went up under a structure linked to the Retail Price Index.

Politics and the nation has lost one more of the old brigade. He will command a prominent place in the history books. — W. W. McCormack, Symers Street, Dundee.