NUALA AHERN MEP,
Madam, - It is time Mary Harney stopped digging a hole for herself and acknowledged the good faith of the Irish people who do not see the solution to the tyranny of Saddam Hussein in a war on the Iraqi people.
There is indeed a difference, as she says, between criticising the policies of the US government and being hostile to America. Can she therefore not criticise those US policies that are leading to war? I won't hold my breath. - Yours, etc.,
NUALA AHERN MEP,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
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Madam, - Mary Harney writes that "we must be prepared to uphold any further resolution by the Security Council aimed at achieving the disarmament of Saddam Hussein". Will she support the US and UK if they go to war without a second resolution? Or will she support the memorandum submitted to the UN Security Council by France, supported by Germany and Russia, which sets out disarmament as its primary intention?
Or would that be siding with dangerous left-wing elements? - Yours, etc.,
RUAIRI Ó CUIV,
St Kevin's Terrace,
Dublin 8.
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Madam, - The recent outbursts by Ms Harney and Mr McDowell regarding the recent march against war are very instructive about the nature of the Progressive Democrats. We should not be surprised that they have such disdain for the very large numbers of ordinary Irish people who protested against war. The PDs are in effect the face of the US Republican Party in Ireland. They are ideologically driven right-wing zealots who are not interested in the strongly held views of a majority of the world's population.
Mary Harney's constant concern to protect the interests of the United States at all costs also prompts the question: in whose interests do the PDs act? Do they act in the interests of the Irish people or do they serve the interests of foreign multinationals? - Yours, etc.,
ALAN McPARTLAND,
Grange Court,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
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Madam, - I put this question in deadly earnest. Suppose the Pope managed to evade the clutches of the Curia and moved to take up open-ended residence as a peacemaker in Baghdad.
Would Bush still send in the bombers? - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL COADY,
Carrick-on-Suir,
Co. Tipperary.
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Madam, - Last week President Bush called Chile's President Ricardo Lagos seeking his support for a new UN Security Council resolution. Chile is a non-permanent member of the Security Council and Bush, aware that Chile is seeking a free trade agreement with the US, had no need to remind him that the agreement has not yet been ratified.
It was then the turn of the good cop Colin Powell to admit that the part played by the US in the overthrow of President Allende was "a part of US history that we are not proud of". He added: "Today we have a more reasonable way of dealing with these situations." No doubt the irony of his statement was lost on him.
It was not, however, lost on Chile's La Tercera newspaper which wrote: "The dark side to the United States' 'fight for liberty' has been a foreign policy that, for decades, supported bloody dictators from all parts of the world".
Chile still bears the scars of one of these "bloody dictators" but economic pressure from a more powerful economy will force it to support this new resolution. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN T. KAVANAGH,
Braemor Road,
Dublin 14.
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Madam, - Seamus Murphy SJ makes a good case for military action against Saddam Hussein (Rite and Reason, February 24th). What is confusing is the understanding that this action is morally just. The problem is: who will carry out this intervention, after a careful reflection on the following words from Jesus? "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
Maybe Lent will again be used as some kind of cloak: remember Kosovo! - Yours, etc.,
JOHN F. HIGGINS,
Allen Park Road,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
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Madam, - In your issue of February 21st, Conor O'Clery makes startling revelations about the US government creating a whole new generation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
It is almost impossible to measure the hypocrisy of a government thinking it has the right to chastise a particular tyrant and slay hundreds of his innocent citizens with E-bombs and other barbarous weapons, while taking on itself the right, without consultation with anyone, to make its already far too lethal arsenal of weapons still more lethal.
Does the US government not yet realise that the world knows perfectly well that its quarrel with Iraq is not over weapons but over a huge oilfield that the influences that design Bush's policies for him greedily covet? Bush and his circle will never be in the smallest peril if war comes, nor will their cringing disciples here and elsewhere, on whose heads and consciences (if they have any) the blood of hundreds of innocent Iraqi citizens will swill for ages to come.
If those wholly safe warmongers knew what modern war is really like, perhaps they might start thinking again like normal human beings. - Yours etc.,
JOHN DE COURCY
IRELAND,
President, Irish Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.