Sir, - Bertie Ahern warns that we must guard against the last residue of a reflex anti-Americanism, which is apt to come to the surface during any international crisis (The Irish Times, March 30th).
Since such crises tend either to be engineered or exacerbated by the US, such a reflex is an entirely natural one. Political anti-Americanism, in my view, is a moral and ethical stance on a par with anti-Nazism, anti-Stalinism, or any opposition to an attempt by a bloated and arrogant superpower to seize global hegemony.
Mr Ahern's volte-face regarding the PfP is merely another example of the abject and cynical opportunism characteristic of our foreign policy as a whole. - Yours, etc.,
Raymond Deane, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.