Couple of good letters in today's Guardian in response to a really stupid one by the increasingly rabid Frederick Forsythe:

Here's Fred:
Anyone gullible enough to believe, like the Spanish electorate, that one has to provoke al-Qaida by solidarity with George Bush or involvement in Afghanistan, Israel or Iraq, should recall one fact.

The suicide pilots of 9/11 were enlisting in flying schools in the summer of 1999. Bush was not even a candidate. When it comes to fanatical attacks on citizens, it is not a question of what we have done, but what we are. There is nothing we can do about that, so we have no choice but to fight back.
Frederick Forsyth
Hertford

Here are the responses:


Re Frederick Forsyth's letter (March 18): the Spanish electorate is not gullible. If my vote is being analysed in terms of bravery or cowardice, then negotiation and dialogue is much braver than cowardly terrorist attacks or unjustified wars. I had decided to vote PSOE before the Madrid massacre. It is a vote in favour of UN resolutions, of dialogue between different sectors of humanity and of Spain's role as mediator in conflicts in the Arab world. The PP has not lost, it simply has not won the elections. This is democracy.
Mercedes Munárriz Guezala
Madrid, Spain

Three short reminders from Spain for the word-processing warriors. 1) When you are attacked by A, you don't normally trust someone who promises to retaliate by fighting B. 2) On "appeasement": Munich was act two; act one was the abandonment of Spanish democracy in the face of an Italian-German intervention. Act four was US support for the resulting murderous dictatorship. 3) "What we are" is people who vote freely. And never, not even in a tragic crisis, is that on the basis of a single issue.
Carlos Piera Fernando
Madrid, Spain