AS we are stunned by the slaughter of innocent children and adults at a concert in Manchester (“Carnage at concert”, The Herald, May 23) it is perhaps valid to remember the recent speech by President Trump where he described the perpetrators of such despicable acts as members of a death cult.

These individuals have nothing to do with the religion of Islam. Instead they seek to escape their own sad lives to a promised heaven and to take as many other innocent people as possible with them. They are manipulated by those who subscribe to a warped interpretation of Islam and are utilised as blunt instrument to try to undermine our societies and freedoms.

It is the intention of the manipulators to force us to blame all Muslims for the acts of these individuals. We are better than that. We will not descend to blaming our Muslim friends for the acts of these twisted individuals. In the same way we did not blame our Roman Catholic and Protestant friends and neighbours for the atrocities committed by the IRA and UVF.

Our sympathies and prayers are with all those affected by this barbaric act but we will not descend into hatred because we are better than that.

David Stubley,

22 Templeton Crescent, Prestwick.

LISTENING to the horrifying reports of the Manchester bombing made it clear that we have to take more stringent methods to stop these atrocities. When there are large gatherings such as concerts, football matches, and the like, it is not unreasonable to forbid anyone there to have with them any bag or back-pack of any size large enough to hold the amount of explosives that must have been taken into the theatre in Manchester.

Perhaps a little inconvenient, but what is the alternative? It would be perfectly simple to make this the norm while there is any chance of such an attack happening again.

Mrs J Thompson,

21 Finnart Road, Prestwick.

THE world will rightfully unite in sympathy for the victims of the barbaric Manchester bombing, just as it did in shows of empathy after the atrocities in Brussels, Paris, Nice, Berlin and St Petersburg.

That said, we must not forget the sad but brutal fact that If our political leaders in London had not involved us in acts of savagery to replace governments in the likes of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, such retaliations would never have materialised.

As Byron penned in Childe Harold in 1818: “The thorns which I have reap’d are of the seeds I planted. They have torn me – and I bleed! I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.”

The made-in-London mantra concentrates on the rhetoric of human rights, but does not concern itself with the quality of human rights – for all human beings.

William Burns,

41/8 Pennywell Road, Edinburgh.