Madam, – May I voice a contrarian view of the conflict in Libya? I understand that Col Gadafy is a reformed character. He had desisted from the development of chemical and nuclear weapons. He no longer provides financial support to terrorist organisations and had agreed to pay substantial compensation to the victims affected. In short, he was generally welcomed back into the mainstream political world, somewhat like Martin McGuinness. Moreover, he or his associates do not appear to be using his new-found wealth and freedom to indulge in bunga-bunga parties.
The main cause of anger among the citizens of those countries in turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa is poverty and unemployment. But this is not the case in Libya which employs over a million expatriates and where per capita income is soaring on foot of oil revenues. Hugely ambitious plans for the development of both social and economic infrastructure are underway which, inter alia, will result in the creation of literally hundreds of schools and dozens of universities and hospitals. Irish firms were employed in some of these developments.
There is as yet little evidence that Gadafy’s regime has engaged in casual religious or racial bigotry either before or after the uprising. He offered the people of Benghazi a ceasefire.
Will the actions of the West push the regime into a hurried, bloody and vengeful end to the conflict? And is there clear evidence that the regime was that bad, or likely to be much worse than whatever regime replaces it in Libya? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Brian Corvin’s letter on setting up a “global federation” is a fantastic idea. As he mentions, it would only take nine or 10 countries acting closely together to move us forward – I’d suggest China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States initially with perhaps 10 other non-permanent members this could form the Security Council of this global federation. I’m sure most other countries could in time be persuaded to join this great endeavour.
Obviously we’d need a catchy name – how about something inspiring like “The Nations United”? – Yours, etc,