WILLIAM Burns (Letters, May 24) argues that the Manchester bombing is retaliation because “our political leaders in London … involved us in acts of savagery to replace governments in the likes of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria”. However, he destroys his own argument by also referring to “the atrocities in Brussels, Paris, Nice, Berlin and St Petersburg”.

France, as Mr Burns has clearly forgotten, was a strong opponent of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. So why has it suffered in recent years more major terrorist attacks than any other European nation?

The fact is that there are relatively small but powerful groups of adherents to a perverted version of Islam who believe the open, liberal, diverse societies of Europe and North America are sinful and must be destroyed. The terrorist acts they inspire in the west aren’t retaliation for specific action by any nation; they are intended to weaken and ultimately destroy our societies, our culture and our freedoms. They can succeed only if we allow them to succeed.

As David Stubley writes (Letters, May 24), the individuals who carry out these barbaric acts “have nothing to do with the religion of Islam”. Iain Macwhirter writes today about “Islamic terrorism” (“Uniting in defiance against killers of concert teenagers ensures bombers are beaten already”, The Herald, May 24), and I wish people would stop using that phrase, it’s an oxymoron. Terrorism isn’t Islamic. I don’t have a lot of time for Donald Trump, and he isn’t the most elegant speaker, but he was right to say that these people are losers; sad, deluded, inadequates who think they can gain reward in paradise by cowardly acts aimed at innocent people.

After an atrocity like this, we all pause and reflect. For those directly affected, those who have lost loved ones or have suffered life-changing injuries, their lives will never be the same again and the pain will always be there. But for the rest of us, life goes on, we move forward, but we have to ensure we behave in such a way that the risk of further terrorist acts is diminished, even if it can’t be eliminated. And we do that by respecting diversity and difference, by breaking down barriers to understanding, and by uniting as communities locally, nationally and globally. We’re all in this together and we can, together, defeat the terrorists who seek to set us against each other.

Doug Maughan,

52 Menteith View, Dunblane.

I HAVE no doubt that the outrage in Manchester has made many of us unsettled and perturbed. We feel anxious as the threat level is raised by the Government to “critical “ and more armed personnel are to appear on our streets, town centres and public facilities.

However unsettled, perturbed and anxious we may feel, these reactions have to be seen in perspective when compared with the devastation being felt by those who have lost a family member or friend in such a sudden and brutal manner and with the worries of those waiting to find out how someone close to them among the injured will come through this awful incident.

In all the darkness and depression generated by this act of inhumanity, there is, at least for me, one shaft of light. That shone when I listened to how a couple, looking for members of their own family in all the turmoil, took time off their search to comfort a distressed young girl and the lady of the couple stayed with the girl until they managed to get in touch with her father and re-unite her with him. In the midst of all the carnage caused by this depravity and with their own serious concerns for their own family (fortunately they were eventually found uninjured), this couple were prepared to help a stranger in need.

It was a moving tale which helped to restore one’s faith in human nature when barbarity appeared to be in the

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.

I WAS horrified to discover, on various news sources, that the Queen’s garden party had marked the horrendous events in Manchester by a minute’s silence. Surely the brutality of the attack and the terrible consequences of the loss of so many innocent lives merited a postponement of the event. An event which is described as a “party” has no place in our society on the day after a national disaster.

I am well aware of the fact that we must never bow to terrorists but holding a party on the day after the event is in my opinion taking the “stiff upper lip” a step too far. The people who advise the Monarch should be ashamed of themselves, as they are a disgrace to our nation.

Esther Gallagher,

Woodlands Avenue, Lanark.

I CANNOT be alone in finding wall-to-wall coverage of the Manchester atrocity disrespectful and distasteful. Of course there is a requirement to provide the public with news, but we are now at the stage where messages on flowers laid are read aloud, when anyone who had any connection must be interviewed, when experts are wheeled in to speculate, when doctors attending the severely injured must describe horrific injuries. The final straw, and the culprit was the BBC, was an interview with a distraught mother who had not heard from her daughter, her desperation and tears exposed for public view. It turns out even as a microphone and camera was thrust into her face, her daughter was lying dead from her injuries.

I am appalled at the lack of restraint by in particular the BBC and ITV. Surely to goodness some respect must be shown for the dead, the dying, the injured and their loved ones and this is not the way to do it.

Christine Grahame,

SNP MSP, The Scottish Parliament, Holyrood, Edinburgh.