Madam, - In a footnote to his column in last Saturday's edition, Mark Steyn refers to the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as a "fictitious" humanitarian crisis.
According to Amnesty International, ill-treatment of the prisoners includes sleep deprivation, prolonged exposure to light and loud music, and prolonged restraint in painful positions; in other words, torture. The detainees are kept without access to family and legal representation.
Mr Steyn ridicules Ms Maggie Pernot for raising the issue of the treatment of the prisoners in a reader's letter. He implies that her opinion carries no weight because her postal address is in France.
The stated reason for this is that she should be concentrating on what is a serious "humanitarian" crisis at home (deaths from the heatwave), but I suspect the real reason for his displeasure is lingering bitterness over the French refusal to sanction a UN invasion of Iraq.
Also, he makes the ludicrous claim that French pensioners would have been better off as prisoners of the US military, rather than supported by what has been, up to now, regarded as the best health care system in the world.
The French have a crisis on their hands, and I would welcome constructive commentary, not triumphalism by Mr Steyn.
He ignores a vast amount of evidence when he condones the ill-treatment of the prisoners. He uses ridicule, rather that fact, to support his case. The main pillar of his argument is in fact an attempt to deflect attention away from the original issue.
All in all, a standard week's work from Mr Steyn. - Yours, etc.,
FRANK SULLIVAN, The Maples, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.