Madam, – While wishing President Obama every chance of success in his efforts to turn around intractable global issues, the war in Afghanistan is a folly we in Ireland would do well to distance ourselves from. Our contribution to the rebuilding of that country should be of an entirely non-military nature and I call for the withdrawal of our forces from the Nato-led alliance (World News, August 19th).
Irish soldiers have fought and died in Afghanistan before and for no meaningful goal. My own ancestor, Henry Brooke from Co Fermanagh, was killed at Kandahar on August 16th, 1880 aged 44. Before he died, he wrote in his diary, “I oppose our forward policy in Afghanistan. They (the Afghans) are a very war-like people and prefer tyranny and misgovernment from their own kind to order after the English fashion”.
Given the limited perspective and vision of his time, I think these words still have a ring of truth about them that we would be wise to remember, at a time of the 129th anniversary of his death.
– Yours, etc,