Something to think about:

I am astounded at the number of commentators, like Thomas Friedman (“Muslims in danger,” Views, July 9), who refuse to link what happened in London with what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. Britain and the United States are killing Muslims by the thousands in these two countries, yet we are shocked when there is reprisal.

There are not just extremists as Friedman would have us believe. They are humiliated people fighting back with the weapons they have available. When the dust settles and sanity returns, the war on Iraq will be judged as one of the great catastrophic blunders in all of history.

This is a quote of a Letter to the Editor to the International Herald Tribune, by Robert Billyard, Langley, British Columbia, published on June 12th. The highlighting is my own, and has not been reproduced as in the original.