Sir, - Timothy O'Connor's letter of October 17th really takes the biscuit for sheer arrogance and unwarranted bile - seemingly directed both at individual Irish citizens who dare to criticise US foreign policy and at the Irish nation's "foolishness on the world stage" (an offensive accusation which he fails to support with any facts or with anything resembling a coherent argument).
He claims to have "seldom heard any word of sympathy" for the suffering endured by America. Didn't he notice that Ireland had a national day of mourning on which all schools, businesses and State offices closed as a mark of respect? Hasn't he noticed the acres of sympathetic reportage in the Irish media? He then has the nerve to accuse us of "lowering the general standards of decency". More disturbingly, he berates our "pompous ingratitude". Perhaps he might tell us exactly what it is we are supposed to be grateful for, and why this gratitude should take the form of unqualified support for US military action.
It really is about time that Americans like Mr O'Connor came to grips with the simple fact that people around the world - not just in Ireland - are sick to the back teeth of American insensitivity towards the suffering of others.
Mr O'Connor sneers at those who "lecture" him about "world justice". Are American lives the only lives to be valued? The slaughter of over 5,000 at the World Trade centre was an abominable act and I haven't heard anybody say the US "deserved what it got".
I do, though, hear people asking why Americans still don't understand that their shambolic and self-serving foreign policy has unleashed more than its fair share of Frankenstein's monsters - Osama bin Laden and the Taliban being two cases in point.
Mr O'Connor notes "resentment" about Shannon airport being offered for US military use as if this is to be automatically condemned. Well, yes, I do quite resent this - perhaps I've been under the misapprehension that Ireland is supposed to be neutral and that the Irish electorate should be consulted before our Government rushes to back a military campaign with unclear and ill-defined goals. It's called democracy, and our leaders have shown contempt for it.
Mr O'Connor's final bitter comments about thinking of "nothing more serviceable to my country that to devote myself to drying up every dollar, every tourist, every last outmoded bit of the dream of Ireland" speak volumes. In other words, if we don't grovel at the table of American bounty, we will be punished.
If Mr O'Connor wants to know what "pompous ingratitude" is, he should remove the plank from his own eye before daring to comment on the mote in another's. And if he wishes to promote "decency" he could start by apologising for his vicious and inexcusable criticisms of the decent people of Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
Liam Carson, Jones Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.