Madam, - While Charles Krauthammer is annoying, is he not just part of a much wider malaise? Since 9/11 various Irish newspapers and radio have subjected us to a plethora of "controversial" American commentators (as well as the Canadian or the odd Russian speaking for this or that nebulous "institute").
Ostensibly this is not because of any pro-American bias, but because it is important for us to understand the world view of the world's only superpower. During the cold war the CIA ran "Operation Mockingbird", which involved spending millions of dollars to plant stories and sometimes even full-time journalists in the great newspapers of the world. The CIA may not be paying today's propagandists, but is the effect not the same? Is it not a diminution of our sovereignty that Irish media feel obliged to give space to these people and, it seems to me, grant them a licence for uncouth ranting that would never be accorded to Irish or European journalists?
As China joins the US as a world superpower, will our newspapers and radio stations start to set aside time and space for Chinese Communist party apparatchiks to enlighten us as to the world-view of the world's second superpower? Should the Saudis be accorded a similar privilege as the biggest oil producers? Where will it all end? - Yours, etc,
TIM O'HALLORAN,
Ferndale Road,
Dublin 11.
Madam, - Concerning his recommendation of Joan Peters's book From Time Immemorial, Monty Ross (September 14th) assumes correctly that "Raymond Deane will be charging in to describe this book as rubbish".
However, my reason is not because "it contains information that does not suit [ my] version of history", but because it has been exposed by US, British and Israeli scholars - most of them Jewish - as a travesty on a par with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The fact that Mr Ross nonetheless recommends it to unwary readers speaks volumes about his version of history. - Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Ireland Palestine
Solidarity Campaign,
Dame Street,
Dublin 2.