Sir, - What possible difference does it make whether Ireland joins PfP, WEU or for that matter NATO itself?
Ireland has not - and never has had - any sense of responsibility for itself: the concept of there being any entity in Ireland worth defending, worth dying for, does not exist outside the special case of the IRA.
The country is not neutral, despite the nonsense talked about this. It is, however, defenceless, a rather different thing. It always has been defenceless, because it has always been a non-entity, and thus militarily a liability to itself and to others. It is for this strategic reason that Britain was forced to occupy and garrison and eventually govern the country for so many centuries.
Though they can be induced to go through the motions, nonetheless the words "tea party" have no meaning in the minds of chimpanzees; so likewise, though a jejune travesty be enacted, do the words "sovereignty", "independence", and of course "defence" and "neutrality" have no meaning in the Irish mind.
The chimps tea party has gone on too long; it's no longer funny, it's now disgusting and demeaning. The time is long overdue for Ireland to take its place in the bigger scheme of things, for our armed forces to become auxiliaries of NATO, just as we all, themselves included, have been happy to see them in the role of (despised, incidentally) auxiliaries of the British forces along the Border this past 30 years.
As to your first question: what difference does it make? The answer is, none. If we are worthless outside, how would we be anything but worthless inside? - Yours, etc.,
John Cully, Brennanstown Road, Dublin 18.