Like Chris Tinker (Letters, September 20), I, too, have been ashamed to be English in the wake of the response to the attack on the "free", "democratic" and "civilised" West.

Ashamed the freedom exemplified by the rule of law has been so easily ignored in favour of people being "guilty until proven innocent". Ashamed democracy has so quickly been dropped in favour of an "if you're not with us, you're against us" stance. Ashamed it is supposedly civilised behaviour to attack innocent people purely because of the political and ideological standpoint of the leaders, which, unless I'm much mistaken, was exactly what happened in New York and Washington.

Sadly, Mr Tinker and others seem to have forgotten the lessons of history in the rush to both demonise a specific group and fall in behind those who wish to take arbitrary actions to counter that group. While the attacks on the US were abhorrent and despicable, does this really give us the right to repay such acts in kind?

-Simon Allistone, Brighton Road, Lancing