LUGAID BRUGHA,
A chara, - I think it is important to remember that during the US presidential campaign George W. Bush said that the cold war may be over but that the enemy was still out there. "We don't know who they are, but they are there." In order to "payback" the defence contractors who helped him buy the US presidency, he has to create the situation where Americans are afraid of who ever "they are". In this case he is expanding the Monroe Doctrine to the rest of the world - Ireland next? - and in the process destroying the basic concepts of democracy by removing the free choice of the electorate.
At the same time he speaks out of both sides of his mouth as he continues to support the Israeli terrorist attacks on the Palestinian people. All in the name of a population in which over 50 per cent of the voters did not vote for him.
No, Saddam is not the one I would want as leader, but that is something that needs to be solved by Iraqis, not George W. Bush. HIs daddy could not do it and I doubt if he can without the misguided support of the rest of the non-Muslim world. - Is mise,
LUGAID BRUGHA,
Kilrush, Co Clare
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Sir, - I find the recent criticism of America and its increasing antipathy toward Iraq difficult to stomach. The Government's willingness to cut much-needed aid to countries far more needing of it than ourselves, and the lack of criticism with which it was met, continues to demonstrate our astounding self-centredness.
The Iraqi people, despite what the orchestrated demonstrations, faked funerals and propaganda appear to show, do not support Saddam Hussein, and his brand of ethnic cleansing. We hear reports of children dying of disease and starvation, and accept the claim that they are a result of unfair US imposed sanctions! This is a masterpiece of spin and propaganda; the reality is that their deaths are a result of the channeling of the country's wealth into weapons research and the coffers of the ruling Ba'ath party.
It is high time that we as a nation learned to take a principled stand against injustices outside our borders. For too long, we have hidden behind some over-hyped notion of neutrality, leaving others to suffer at the hands of countless tyrants the world over. M.G Gargan of Milltown (August 10th) insists that, as we have no problem with the Iraqis, we should give them no cause to quarrel with us. I suspect that (s)he is right, in that the average Irish citizen bears no ill-will toward the average Iraqi. In fact, it appears to me that the average Irish citizen simply doesn't care. If, as appears increasingly likely, America does decide to wage war on Iraq, we should give their actions our full backing, stop playing the self-absorbed adolescent and finally declare our nation's maturity. - Yours, etc.,
STEPHEN BROPHY,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow