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It is important for us to embrace a wide view of our current world situation and not to be distracted into a belief that the perpetrators of Islamist terrorism are in any way representative of their peoples, cultures and religion.

I have spent many years in the Arab Islamic world both as soldier and civilian.

I have many Islamic contacts and friends.

The vast majority of Moslems are as bemused as you and me regarding the excesses wrought by Islamist-based terror.

As we, they do not understand how such horrors can be perpetrated in the name of their religion.

As Mao said: ‘The guerrilla swims in the sea of the people’.

The ‘people’ are you and me. Our intelligence services do an excellent job.

They cannot, however, be everywhere.

Attacks, when they occur, are obvious to all.

Those which do not come to some bloody conclusion are usually foiled by high-quality information.

Such information can emanate from you and me.

We need to be the defending eyes of our nation, to have the courage to report the suspect and that which simply does not feel right.

Much about intelligence gathering is intuitive.

We are fighting a new kind of warfare, one in which we are all involved.

We cannot afford to opt out. If we do, we lose the psychological battle. The attention of all is central to winning this war.

We must preserve our values and be vigilant in watching our young people and those with whom they communicate.

Certainly the vile-minded and fanatically-driven may attack us.

Where they are ‘successful’ in their own view they cause damage to our society which they seek to destroy.

They hurt families and the hurts last for the lifetime of those who are wounded physically and mentally.

What terrorists fail to understand is that their attacks steel our resolve.

Every bomb exploded and claimed as successful by a terror group is in fact a monumental failure and totally counter-productive to whatever their negative ‘cause’.

It is central to the continuance of our freedoms that as a society at large we continue our resistance. That resistance is founded on pluck, courage, determination and plain cussedness not to be defeated by these disgraceful specks of matter, which do not qualify as human beings.

They are devoid of compassion, value death more than life. They cowardly seek out the softer target – Fusilier Rigby, PC Keith Palmer, who did their duty wearing the Queen’s uniform with pride in the defence of our nation and its freedoms.

The terrorists aim at innocent people travelling on buses and trains pursuing their daily lives, hoping to break the British spirit. Do they know us?

Do they understand that to break that spirit is impossible? We know how to withstand evil. We have done it and will continue to do it.

The evil thinker should be mindful of our history.

We live in a global community.

We cannot afford isolation and parochial thinking.

A focus of our intent must be as expressed by Nato that ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’.

Leaving the institution of Europe does not change our geography.

We are still a part of a world grouping which values freedom, justice and the particular brand of democratic representation which we have developed down the centuries.

No terrorist is equipped to wrest our values from us.

Charles Wilson, Kensington Avenue, Douglas

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Channel 4’s award winning Find It, Fix It, Flog It presented by Henry Cole and Simon O’Brien is soon going to be filming in the Isle of Man.

We are looking for more barns, sheds and garages filled with any unwanted items you might have lying about. Due to the success of the first series Henry and Simon are now looking for double the number of locations as last time.

We are on the hunt for participants in the Isle of Man who may have accumulated clutter over time which they need to get rid of, but also make a little bit of money in the process.

In the past, all manner of items have been transformed; something can be made from nothing!

This can be anything from an old car that has been sat needing work in your garage for years to a table which is missing legs or needs a little touch up.

Our presenters will take away two items each and either restore them to their original glory or upcycle them into something you wouldn’t expect. Our plan is to increase the value of these items as much as possible as they are then sold on with all profits going straight into your pocket.

We are looking to visit locations within the next couple of weeks so if you are at all interested or would like some more information about taking part, then please feel free to email us at [email protected] or alternatively you can phone on 02920 223456.

Daniel Winkler, Production Team, Yeti Television.

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It is not every day that you are hand-delivered a secret document. Mine came innocently stapled to the back of a letter from a construction company regarding potential disruption caused by new flood defences in Castletown.

Indeed, at first I thought the two were related. The document bore no explanation to its purpose, but did have a superficial likeness to a map.

There were multi-coloured lines but no key to indicate their meaning. I tried to relate it to existing or proposed flood defences, or to the river that might flood. None of these features were indicated, so my attention turned to the five boxes shown on the document. Each had an alpha-numeric code associated with them. Who knows what these secret codes meant?

Even Google couldn’t provide an answer.

What can you do when the worlds biggest data store and search engine can’t give you an answer? I admit I was stumped and even considered turning to an even greater authority – Manx skeet – when inspiration struck me.

Had I not read in last week’s IoM Examiner about the launch of Freemasonry stamps?

Did they not contain secret codes and symbols that could only be seen under UV light?

Excitement at a possible solution gave way to spine-tingling fear.

What if it was a Freemasonry document? Their members are under a death threat for revealing Masonic secrets.

Courage failed me, so reluctantly I decided to send the document to GCHQ to see if they can crack the code and illicit any useful information from the document.

David Cole, Victoria Road, Castletown.

Editor’s note: We hope the report on page 21 about the flooding defences in Castletown makes the situation clearer for Mr Cole and any other mystified residents of the ancient capital.