MR ISHERWOOD is quite mistaken about international law.

I hope that the following quotation from the fourth edition of Malcolm Shaw's International Law will settle the matter: "... any person taking part in hostilities and falling into the hands of an adverse party shall be presumed to be a prisoner of war and thus protected by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949. Where there are any doubts, such status shall be retained until conclusively determined by a competent tribunal."

The treatment of the Al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo is consequently illegal. In view of the fact that rather more Afghan civilians have been killed than American civilians (I recommend Mr Isherwood to consult Professor Marc Herold's website if he doubts it) I cannot understand why he reserves his venom for those who killed the Americans rather than the Afghans. They are all dead, Americans and Afghans alike. What we call terrorists are merely non-state agents who are prepared to use lethal force ruthlessly for political ends. Since this is what states are prepared to do, both "terrorists" and states are on the same wavelength.

Failure to realise this shows why Bush's and Straw's comments on the present Middle East crisis are so unhelpful. To regard the state killing of Palestinians by Israelis as defensible and the killing of Israelis by Palestinian groups as indefensible ("terrorism") is quite insustainable. Either they are both defensible or they are both indefensible (the latter is my own view). The idea that when the Israelis assassinate a Palestinian leader, that is legitimate, but when an Israeli Cabinet Minister is assassinated by a Palestinian group, that is terrorism, merely serves to make the world a more dangerous and violent place and to a preference for "war war" over "jaw jaw".

Malcolm Pittock

St James Ave

Breightmet, Bolton