Madam, - In an RTÉ Prime Time interview with Brian Farrell on June 19th, the Taoiseach was asked if he had been misled on the numbers of troops and weapons going through Shannon, and on the issue of weapons of mass destruction as justification for the war against Iraq. He answered evasively that there was "no great participation on our behalf" in the war (thereby appearing to admit for the first time that that there was at least some participation), and agreed that there may not have been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq immediately before the war. He emphasised that it was right to "support our friends".
He failed to express any words of regret or sympathy for the innocent people killed in Iraq, just concern for "our friends" who had perpetrated these unlawful killings.
Mr Ahern, and perhaps a majority of the Irish public, seem to be satisfied that we were right to support the US Government in its unjust and unlawful war against the people of Iraq. On a purely short-term financial basis it is probably correct to say that allowing the use of Shannon airport was in our best economic interests. We are already reaping the benefits of cheap oil and continuing US investment. However, the destruction of Iraq, its pollution with large amounts of depleted uranium and the unlawful killing and horrific maiming of thousands of innocent Iraqi people cannot ever be justified for Western or Irish economic interests, even if a majority of the Irish people think it was a good idea.
I seem to recall reading that in the late 1930s the opinion was expressed that 40 million Germans could not all be wrong in their support for Hitler. They were all wrong. Corporatism was one of the names given to the fascist movements that spawned Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Corporatism, on a global scale is also close to the reality of what we are now experiencing. There are dangerous parallels between the state of international affairs at present and those of the 1930s. It was not the minor dictators, the equivalent of Saddam Hussein today, who proved to be the threat to world peace in the 1930s. It was major powers - Germany, the USSR and Japan - which placed themselves above and beyond international control, and fatally undermined the League of Nations.
Appeasement of these powers, who developed into rogue states, did not work in the 1930s and it will fail also at the beginning of the 21st century. It is ironic that Britain which, virtually alone at first, stood up to the corporatism and crimes against humanity of the mid-20th century, should be actively assisting the corporate raiders of today. Meanwhile Ireland, having asserted her neutrality in 1939, has shamefully abandoned it in 2003 when it could have made a difference by shining a light, if only a candlelight, on war and murder masquerading as peace. - Yours, etc.,
EDWARD HORGAN, Commandant (retired), Newtown, Limerick.