I agree with James Wong Wing On's 'My friend Mahfuz is wrong' (Oct 9). Osama bin Laden's war on America has been fueled in part by anger over US support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest shrines.

Whatever the shortcomings in American foreign policies, opposition to them should not be expressed by way of crashing the plans into the World Trade Center and Pentagon killing innocent people of all different nationalities.

These acts by definition constitutes terrorism because they constitute unlawful acts of violence for political or ideological purposes as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments to act in a certain way or accept certain demands.

In the interest of self-defence, the Americans and allies now retaliate against him and his Al-Qaeda network.

As the terrorists manning the doomed planes died along with others, they are obviously not around for the investigation and establishment of the link to Al-Qaeda's network that will stand up to standards of proof in a court of law.

However, by juridical standards of at least the west, he who likes Osama incites and continues to incite as well as those like Talibans who harbour such terrorists or potential terrorists and their training camps, are deemed as responsible or guilty as the terrorists themselves.

In the interest of self-protection, safety and prevention, such source of incitement has, from the American point of view, got to be eliminated once and for all.

Hence, the present retaliatory strikes. They are intended to be and have so far been measured,discriminate and proportionate. The strikes have been aimed at military and strategic infrastructure and troop or camp concentrations.

Why should there be such an outrage against these strikes?

The argument that force should be eschewed in preference to addressing the root problem alleged to be American foreign policy partiality and failures is not cogent because terrorism cannot and should not be appeased by first acceding to the demands of terrorism even if it implicates rectification of a failed or wrong foreign policy.

To say that an application of force against terrorist will spawn an endless cycle of more terrorist attacks, and hence force should not be applied is to concede to the dictates of terrorism in the first instance.

There is now a clarion call by Osama and the Taliban for a jihad against America and its allies. It is rhetoric to arouse the Islamic world and to muster its support against the infidels. This is again a naked attempt at using religion's name for one's political purposes just like the way those who hijacked the planes and subsequantly crashing it.

This constitutes a clever manipulation of religious precepts in the sure knowledge that religion, being a visceral issue, goes straight to the heart than the head of the masses.

If successful, it may cause more sporadic terrorist attacks of different form, venue and scale - may be next time by bombs or the anthrax virus in the subways, schools and public buildings until Americans do not dare to come out to the cities or send their children to schools or maintain their civil liberties. A fire is easy to lit but hard to put out. That much is true.

In short, when American way of life is threatened and attacked, it will cause the US and her allies to retaliate with yet greater force and fire-power to send the already undeveloped countries deemed in support of terrorists back to the Stone Age.

The escalation of the conflict with religious undertones will not be to the interest of any person especially those who answer the clarion call to fight the sole remaining super power and its allies armed with technical superiority of weaponry.

I hope good sense will prevail. Mahfuz is not wrong only from the perspective of playing to the gallery of what he thinks his constituencies are receptive to hear.

However, we, including our opposition parties and NGOs, should all do our part and refrain from aggravating the incendiary situation by calling the Americans terrorists or vesting the conflict in Afghanistan with the mantle of religious purpose and justification.