How can we defend the richest nation on earth dropping (to date) 4,000 bombs on the poorest?

And how can our Government be so cynical as to describe, as Geoff Hoon did recently, the killing of 100 innocent civilians in a hospital in Herat as "ordinance ending up where it shouldn't"?

When people are so desperate as to volunteer their lives for a cause they believe in, bombing their towns and villages will create even more martyrs - for every Taliban you kill, you recruit 100 more.

The current approach is strategically misguided. History demonstrates that meeting violence with violence, rather than the rule of law, only perpetuates that violence.

Pointing out the futility of the bombing campaign (it's still not clear what the goals of the military strategy are) in no way diminishes sympathy for the victims of the September 11 attacks and their families and recognition of the need to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It is justice we should be seeking, not vengeance, which is what this bombing campaign of Afghanistan looks like.

Our defence of our values and our civilisation should demonstrate those values to the whole world by investing the considerable resources currently being wasted on bombs and missiles on developing a strategy to find the guilty and bring them before an international criminal court.

Our response should give primacy to justice and the rule of law and be vested in an international body such as the United Nations.

-Kate Whittle, Florence Road, Brighton