Madam, - The recent attacks in Madrid have awakened fears that the EU may now become the front line in the "war on terrorism".
Searching questions are being asked as to how the EU should respond to the threats. New measures to tighten internal security within the EU are already being discussed. But many people are asking whether we will soon face a future where no one can move without being filmed on CCTV and searched before entering buildings, trains, buses and public spaces. It now seems almost inevitable.
Even then, there is a sense of fatalism that such measures could never stop those who want to commit terrorist atrocities. While certain new measures are essential - and interior ministers must think together on how to tighten security - they will be pointless without other steps to help to stem the tide of injustice in the world, which fuels so much hatred and violence.
This is not to say that poverty is a "cause" of terrorism. Far from it. But there is no doubt that there can be no lasting peace without justice.
That is why Trócaire, along with its colleagues in Dóchas, the Irish NGO Platform, is calling on Ireland to use the remaining months of its EU presidency to adopt an approach of "human security" in the EU's external relations.
Rather than focusing principally on internal or defensive measures to stem terrorism, this means recognising the centrality of development in building a secure world. It means recognising that tackling the problems that undermine the security of millions of people throughout the world is also a question of security for all.
Ireland can do this through reaffirming its commitment to meeting the UN's millennium development goals, including that of halving global poverty by 2015. If the forthcoming EU Council were to make a united commitment towards ending poverty through concrete steps towards fair trade, more aid and debt cancellation, it would surely go a long way to ending injustice and hatred and building a more peaceful world. - Yours, etc.,
JUSTIN KILCULLEN, Director, Trócaire, Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Madam, - According to generally accepted opinion polls, Mr Aznar had the gall to ignore the fact that 90 per cent of his people were against his giving in to pressure from the Empire and its top cheerleader. He carried on regardless and actively supported the illegal invasion of Iraq.
One week before the general election, the polls were giving his party a five-percentage-point lead over the main opposition group.
It is worth noting that, after a massacre whose victims should be on Aznar's conscience, the election result shows that 40 per cent of the Spanish voters have not yet understood that, if you co-operate with a thug, you are just asking for retribution from whoever happens to be his victim.
Being the object of derision from leading Empire politicians and commentators should convince us Spaniards that we are finally back on the road to sanity and respect for international law, not military and economic might, as the basis for world peace. - Yours, etc.,
JOSÉ-LUIS ÁLVAREZ, Eyrecourt, Co Galway.
Madam, - Less than a week after the revenge attack on Spain, could President Bush have delivered a more undesirable St Patrick's Day gift than a glowing endorsement of our support in the "war against terror"?
Photo opportunities of him laughing with our leader over a bowl of shamrock can't help either. Perhaps I don't like it because I marched with 100,000 angry people on Irish streets against the use of Shannon by US forces and I know the majority of Ireland was with us in spirit. Perhaps it's because I take two rush-hour trains a day in the city centre. Or perhaps it's because I would like to be alive to see my children grow up.
In any case, if our Government was playing with fire on the Shannon issue, it is now liberally applying petrol to the flames. In whose name? On whose behalf is our Government acting when it all but puts out advertisements declaring its love-in with the US administration?
If the Government is prepared to put the issue of citizenship rights to the people in a referendum, I think we could reasonably expect to be consulted in the same manner about our support for the US. The people of Spain were not consulted - and we are all too painfully aware of what happened there.- Yours, etc.,
SEAMUS LYNCH, Portane, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Michael Reidy's whinge (March 18th) - that if we'd kept our heads down the terrorists might not target us - illustrates the moral bankruptcy of much of the anti-war movement.
As long as it's New York, London or Madrid that gets bombed we can safely offer our mealy-mouthed pacifist platitudes to the victims of terror.
This "war" started with the September 11th bombings, not with the invasion of Iraq. Only an idiot would believe that further attacks were not planned, regardless of the American response. - Yours, etc.,
PETER MOLLOY, Haddington Park, Glenageary, Co Dublin.