In the preface to a new anthology of Irish writing, Irish Writers Against War, Brian Friel warns against the misuse of language
I will not be enlisted into the strident ranks of anti-America. My affectionate relationship with the US began with emigrant ancestors and for over 50 years my own experience of the United States has been animating and enriching.
So I am deeply uneasy with the vocabulary of the current America-bashers. Their language of abuse is an abuse of language - "imperialist monsters", "nation of terrorists", "Christian thugs" (this from a dramatist!).
To those of us who claim to have a responsibility to consider words, that abuse of words is an offence. But I will certainly not be enlisted by America and her allies into their war against Iraq; and I find it difficult to express in temperate language my anger at that prospect.
Of course, emotive words are spat out by my camp too - "blasted homes", "starving families", "mutilated children" - an equally dangerous vocabulary and an equally unhelpful response. So I will say only this: that I oppose this war with a mute passion, a pain of deep anxiety that cannot find coherent articulation.
And I oppose this war because I just know - every instinct insists - that there is something not thought through about it; something wildly disproportionate about it; something inimical to reason and reasonableness; something, indeed, that offends the notion of what it is to be fully human.
If this stance classifies me as an opponent of the US and her allies and the whole axis of terrible vengeance, then regretfully - while this distemper rages abroad - so be it.
• Irish Writers Against the War, published by The O'Brien Press (€10) and on sale from Monday, is an anthology of prose and poems from Irish writers in a strong, creative stand against war. All the writers have waived payment to support the Irish Anti-War Movement. It is edited by Conor Kostick and Katherine Moore