AS an ex-regular contributor to your letters column, I cannot help myself but reply to the biased comments of Mr Jeffrey (Letters, September 20) and now Herbert Simon (Letters, September 24) about our friends in the USA.

How anyone can condone the surprise evil attacks on unsuspecting airline passengers - plus the dreadful attacks on almost 7,000 men, woman and children in the twin towers and the Pentagon? All those people were going about their daily lives and were cruelly cut down by fanatics.

It wasn't an act of war - war gives both sides a chance, as the present situation is doing - but a sly, evil attack on democracy.

We have always had a good relationship with our American friends, and many of us have relatives living there.

Most people in the UK do not agree with Messrs Jeffrey & Simon, and can I say to Juliet Morgan, an American living in York, and all the thousands of American tourists who visit York each year, that we do agree with George Bush and Tony Blair that evil terrorism must be beaten.

No one wants a war but what else can George Bush, Tony Blair and other allied leaders do to wipe out the Osama bin Laden evil? What would you do Messrs Jeffrey, Simon and others? Perhaps it would help if you chartered a plane and all went to counsel Osama bin Laden?

Bryan R Lawson,

Burton Fields Road,

Stamford Bridge,

York.

Updated: 14:03 Saturday, September 29, 2001