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I thought that the point of writing outside your area of expertise was to wonder at new intellectual discoveries and not to repeat lazy innuendo and borderline-racist cliches the way Terence Kealey did ("Siege mentality", 14 August).

Does he honestly think that the United States has a monopoly on torture? Is he ignorant of the torture practised by the British in Northern Ireland into the 1980s? Does he have any idea of Canada's record regarding its aboriginal peoples?

America "quivering in terror" in 1939? What obligation did it have to come to Europe's rescue (again)? If this is what Kealey comes up with when he leaves his area of expertise, please tell him to return to it as quickly as possible.

Tony King, Bristol.