BILLIONS will be spent on the "war on terrorism" but who is the enemy when one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?

When a country has an elected government then any organisation using the bomb rather than the ballot box should be classed a terrorist organisation. However, if a country's citizens do not have the ballot box option can any organisation that resorts to violence be termed terrorist?

Does the democratic West encourage terrorism when supporting undemocratic regimes? If the resources to be spent on defeating terrorism were spent helping countries out of poverty and on to the road to democracy then many innocent people would escape becoming 'collateral damage'.

Failure to resolve the Palestinian problem and to assist the many for whom global capitalism provides no meaningful benefit will result in more acts of terrorism and an ever-increasing flow of asylum-seekers landing on the shores of the West.

Richard Lamb,

Greystoke Road,

Rawcliffe,

York.

...YOUR report on Saturday's anti-war demonstration in York was extraordinary.

It is strange that, when a hundred citizens take to the streets to protest against a war being waged in our name, our local newspaper chooses instead to focus on the activities of one bizarrely-dressed individual waving the flag of a foreign power.

The Evening Press may feel Bush and Blair are right to order the killing of thousands of Afghan civilians as revenge for the devastation in New York and Washington, but it still has a duty to report news factually.

Millions around the world have made clear their opposition to this war.

It will be a conflict to shore up US power world-wide and will do nothing to win justice for the victims of terrorism.

Those who so enthusiastically wave the Stars And Stripes should reflect that the Taliban could not have seized power in Afghanistan without the enthusiastic backing and financial aid of the US government.

Frank Ormston,

York Against the War,

Waverley Street, York.

...WHY doesn't Herbie Stratton organise his own demonstration for war and have a blood fest for, and on behalf of "freedom and democracy", and all things American?

Instead he parasitically uses the peaceful and well-organised anti-war demonstration to grab a headline.

I don't think there was any tension.

I believe the demonstrators were too embarrassed to say anything to him.

How can you reason with his sort of mentality?

James J Stewart,

Beech Grove, York.

Updated: 10:51 Tuesday, October 09, 2001