Sir, - I feel obliged to respond to T.P.Hayes's letter of October 22nd in which he implores George W. Bush to "stop it, stop it now".
Stop it and do what, T.P. Hayes? You asked if it never occurred to Americans that this brutal and catastrophic - and intricately and sinisterly planned - murder of 6,000 innocent people was in reaction to something. Is it a reaction to America looking after itself and its oil and other trade interests that he feels explains this kind of brutality? America has certainly long been looking after its own interests. But think of the implications of a world without this capitalist structure, shaped as it has been by the US.
I don't recall George W. Bush saying America was out to get "revenge". My recollection is that he is determined, along with his fellow US citizens, to get justice and to reinstate and maintain the sanctity of basic human rights and freedom to live without fear - particularly fear for one's life. It is America's healthy determination to stop the horrors associated with terrorism the world over.
T.P.Hayes says George W. Bush has begun to "waste the huge resource of good will and fellowship toward the American people". Surely we do not believe US citizens want to kill innocent people in the name of freedom and justice! I hear continually the cry for "negotiation". With whom are the Americans supposed to negotiate? The Northern Alliance? The Taliban? Is he kidding?
The structure, benevolence and wealth created by the American capitalist system is responsible for alleviating more of the world's suffering than that of all other countries in the world combined.
Take a trip to Normandy and gaze over the thousands and thousands of graves filled with the remains of young American men who sacrificed their lives to fight for freedom in Europe during the second World War if you need a reminder of what it means for Americans to fight for freedom and justice for all.
Now America has been attacked on its own shores. And its citizens continue to be attacked with new cases of anthrax cropping up daily in the most cowardly form of war imaginable - the constant preying upon innocent civilians. These terrorists have changed the rules of warfare and America is scrambling to respond, taking extreme care to try and spare the starving, oppressed people of Afghanistan.
It is sickenly disheartening for me, an American citizen living in Ireland for 23 years, to listen to Irish people naysaying George W.Bush and Tony Blair since September 11th. If Bill Clinton had been doing his job he might have prevented the murder of 6,000 innocents by taking action after the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing that killed six people and injured 1000, the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia where five American military personnel were killed, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia where 19 military personnel were killed and 200 injured, the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa where 224 were killed and 5,000 were injured, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole where 17 US sailors were killed and 39 injured.
It's easy to point fingers and pontificate about peace at all costs when you've been born and bred in a neutral country. I say: if T.P. Hayes has got better answers than the Americans let's have them. But until then spare us his bleeding heart sentiments. He says he is not a na∩ve person. I beg to differ. - Yours, etc.,
Deborah Halley, Killotteran, Waterford.