CALLS to close the borders to all refugees and immigrants are not rational and not proportionate to the threat. In the last 10 years there have been 57 people killed in Islamist terrorist attacks in the UK, or about six a year. Each year around 1,500 people die in traffic accidents in the UK. Yet we don’t have people demanding we ban all cars, trucks and ambulances, because that would be a crazy over-reaction that would cost more lives than it saved. We have speed limits, seat belts and vehicle safety standards to reduce the risk.

The UK already has police and customs officials at its ports and airports and at the Channel Tunnel. We have intelligence agents and trained armed police.

Banning or reducing the number of refugees we took on would not significantly reduce the very small risk from terrorists, especially as most terrorists are born here. All the July 7 London bombers were born here. So were both of Lee Rigby’s murderers. The Paris attackers were French and Belgian with fake Syrian passports.

It would result in suffering and in some cases death for thousands of refugees denied asylum though.

The UK’s Muslim population is already more than three million – too few for much political influence, but far too many for any plan to exclude all Muslims to be viable, even if you ignored the moral issues.

Islamic State’s aim, like Al Qaeda’s before it, is to get us to over-react to its attacks in ways which will alienate the significant Muslim minorities in our own countries and Muslim opinion globally. If we turn on all Muslims and treat them all as potential enemies it will alienate some of them and create new converts for the extremists.

I can already hear the calls of “naïve” from some people. If they don’t believe me try David Kilcullen, a former Australian special forces soldier and counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism adviser to the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, who argues exactly this about Europe in his book The Accidental Guerrilla.

Duncan McFarlane,

Beanshields,

Braidwood,

Carluke.

WHY is the plight of destitute Syrians top priority for "experts" demanding every resource from the Treasury and British Army, but the plight of Britain's home-grown destitute – the 65,000 homeless (according to Shelter in September 2015) - is only considered to be a top priority for the Salvation Army?

Worse, daring to point this out – despite one-third of homeless Britons being non-white when only one in five UK citizens are - somehow makes you "racist"?

This country's hubristic ruling class has completely lost the plot: fixated with vanity charity to impress their global peers whilst imposing institutionalised callousness towards their own citizens.

Mark Boyle,

15 Linn Park Gardens,

Johnstone.

DO our leaders never learn? Do they ever ponder over the consequences of the catastrophic handling of the adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?

I refer of course to the rush to join in the bombing of the Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Syria (“MPs could vote for IS air strikes as early as next week”, The Herald, November 23). Once again there is no coherent plan either for the action or for the aftermath if these attacks are eventually successful. The bombing campaign has been in force for over a year with no discernible effect so far on IS. But, without a doubt, there will have been disastrous effects on the civilian population.

Our leaders do not appear to ask the fundamental question: how does IS keep going? How does it obtain finance? How does it replenish its armaments? Why are its sources for those essentials not attacked?

I do not offer an answer but I suggest that there may be much truth in the obvious conspiracy theories.

On the other hand, Marianne Taylor’s article (“No change is good in the wake of terrorism”, The Herald, November 23) gives hope. Parisians, while naturally apprehensive, are not allowing IS to change their way of life. Let us do the same.

John Scott Roy,

42 Galloway Avenue,

Ayr.

I FELT a sense of impending doom when Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, voiced his belief that Britain's international standing is being damaged by not contributing to air strikes in Syria. Similar statements were made by Members of the Cabinet in 1914 when they urged Britain to declare war on Germany, and the result was millions of young men lying dead in blood soaked trenches. I suspect that Dr Fox's views are shared by many at Westminster, and ominously there are already early signs of 'mission creep', with warnings that air strikes alone won't defeat Islamic State.

As the terrorists won't have “Islamic State” tattooed on their backs, if British bombs are dropped on Syria, the only certain guarantee is that yet more civilians, every bit as innocent as those in Paris last week, will be horribly killed. And as violence begets violence in a vicious circle, the inevitable sequel will be dead and mutilated bodies lying on British streets.

And it must never be forgotten that the seeds of the current mayhem and destruction were sown 12 years ago when terror was unleashed on Iraq by a British Prime Minister who did not appear to understand that once declared, war has a habit of escalating out of Prime Ministerial control, and it is always ordinary, innocent people who end up as lambs to the slaughter. The present UK Parliament must not allow David Cameron to repeat the foreign policy disasters of the past, the results of which continue to haunt us.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

I AM old enough to remember the Army on the streets of the UK. Northern Ireland wasn't a pretty sight or a comfortable place to be in the 1970s. Soldiers are not policemen so don't expect them to act like them. They aren't trained to intercede, mediate and diffuse. The Army is a scalpel, it is a broadsword. So why would you want soldiers on the streets of your town or city?

Well they are available and it's cheaper to mobilise a trained company or battalion of troops then to arm and train sufficient policemen to deal with the type of incidents we are now regularly seeing. There is a public perception that the police have been downsized and have lost numbers and effectiveness to deal with even mundane policing matters.

As a backup to the police the Army is reassuring and helpful. It has equipment and training and a predisposition to use deadly force which the police do not as a rule possess. However, as a substitute for the police they are the first step down a dangerous and slippery path.

The simple truth is that the French have shown their superiority and commitment to purpose in the only way that matters. They have multiple layers of policing and a profusion of elite policing units which we can only envy. Perhaps if we have a terrorist incident in this country we can ask the French to help.

David Bell,

8 Teviot Place,

Troon.