WHY is Mr Isherwood (BEN, November 8) so enthusiastic for a war, which is a naked act of aggression similar to the German attack on Poland in 1939, and even more to Italy's colonial war against Abyssinia in 1935?

Italy had poison gas to use against the helpless inhabitants, but the US has gone one better with its B-52 carpet bombers, its cluster bombs, and its six-ton super bombs dropped by parachute, which vaporise or burn alive everybody in a quarter-of-a-mile radius. The US are completely ruthless: they will not suspend bombing for the holy month of Ramadan, they have turned a deaf ear to the agencies and charities which have united to call for a bombing pause, and, above all, they insist on continuing to use cluster bombs, though they know they destroy any child who picks an unexploded one up.

One of the most disgraceful aspects of this terrible affair is the way that Britain and other Western European powers have joined in the war on the American side. And we used to claim that it was a British tradition to side with the underdog. Goliath does not need any "help" except from native Afghans who are being used as proxy pawns to avoid sending in American ground troops. Why on earth should any self-respecting nation want to curry favour with Goliath by perching on his shoulders? The war on terrorism, as it is called, is a lot of silly nonsense. In what way was the attack on the Two Towers unacceptable if the attack on Afghanistan is acceptable? You can condemn both, as I do, or you can condemn neither, but there is absolutely no way in which you can, with intellectual or moral consistency, condemn one and not the other. Bombing troops unable to defend themselves with the dreadful weapons that the US has at its disposal is sheer terrorism.

And where are the Churches in all this? In Bolton, with the honourable exception of one or two clergy, most notably Canon Williams, the Vicar of Bolton, they are silent. It is left to another great religion, Islam, to stand up in this town for spiritual and moral values and, in doing so, to keep alive the now threatened tradition of British decency. They condemn the attacks on the US and the attacks on Afghanistan. They realise, as so many British people do not, including our own Prime Minister, that the life of an Afghan has equal value in the sight of God to that of an American or a European. We owe them an immense debt.

Malcolm Pittock

St James Avenue

Breightmet, Bolton