Sir, - "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Thus a US military strategist once famously explained his country's support for one of its many Milosevic-type allies in Latin America. It's a crude but honest reflection of the reality of military alliances.
We've had ethnic cleansing of the East Timorese by the junta of Indonesia (a major market for British weaponry), regular human catastrophes visited upon the peoples of Lebanon by its illegal occupant, Israel (a major market for US weaponry), and the well documented genocidal slaughters of the Kurds by Turkey (a NATO member). Neither NATO nor its advocates in Ireland - Messrs Mitchell, O'Malley et al - have ever advocated punitive military strikes against the above powers. It simply would not make sense in the scheme of things.
Nevertheless, it appears most Dail parties are just about ready to shake off Ireland's UN peacekeeping traditions and to sign up to the nuclear-armed alliance of NATO. Will not Irish foreign policy thereby be reduced to deciding which side the next "son of a bitch" is on? On which basis, NATO (that's us) may then decide to arm him or, alternatively, to bomb his people? - Yours, etc., Billy Fitzpatrick,
National chairperson, Irish CND, Dublin 6.