I DEPLORE the three pronged attack on Yasmin Qureshi in the Bolton News, Friday, June 26 for saying that she is fed up of having to say sorry for terrorist attacks by Islamic fanatics.

But why should she? She is not an Islamic fanatic committing terrorist atrocities and does not support their barbaric actions. I was not responsible for the criminal attack on Iraq and indeed opposed it tooth and nail, so why should I say sorry for it? Two of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper actually voted for that invasion, and it's they who should be sorry.

Isis is a very cruel organisation: we may condemn what it does, but it is a self-indulgent exercise unless we make suggestions as to what can be done about it which does not involve yet more killing. The US has already killed 3,000 people by aerial bombardment. What good is that supposed to do?

It only makes Islamic State more determined and creates sympathy for it. And it is humbug to claim that the West is any less immoral anyway.

Isis beheads people and burns them alive face to face but we do it by machines, we tear people apart and or burn them alive with our shells and bombs sometimes launched by operators thousands of miles away

At the Stop the War Conference in London a few weeks ago, I spoke to Jeremy Corbyn about his relations with Yasmin. Jeremy is the only one of the four candidates for the Labour leadership to be a person of principle and committed to opposing burning people alive or tearing them limb from limb. It says much about our society that pundits claim that because he has such views, he is certain to lose. He regards Yasmin as a close ally. Like him she was a firm opponent of the attacks on both Afghanistan and Iraq which destroyed so many lives.

Malcolm Pittock

St James Avenue

Bolton