Madam, - Far be it from me to intrude in the private argument between Carol Stephenson and Senator David Norris, but the former's assertion (April 9th), echoing the Taoiseach, that "ultimately, history will decide if this war was just" is the most appalling moral and ethical laziness, an abrogation of responsbility.
It reminds me of the Crusader king who, on being told that the city he had just breached contained many Christians, ordered his followers to "kill everyone, and let God choose His own".
We cannot wait for history's verdict. A war is just or unjust in its own terms and at the moment of its waging.
I have no doubt that some "good things" will flow from a coalition victory - the replacement of Saddam, the end of sanctions, maybe even some rudimentary form of democracy - but this war was illegal in international law and remains so.
I was always taught that ends do not justify means, and history will have no right to apply a retroactive blessing on this sorry piece of warmongering.
Even accepting Ms Stephenson's thesis, the vindication of history is predicated on this war leaving the world safer and happier than it would otherwise have been.
The victors may write history, but unless they are completely dishonest in their account, the scramble for oil, the undermining of the United Nations and the alienation of a significant portion of the world's population will be the consequences we live with. - Yours, etc.,
CATHAL TYNER,
New Row Square,
Dublin 8.
Madam, - While the current protests against the invasion of Iraq can now have no influence on the outcome of the war it is nevertheless worth continuing with them.
The sight of millions of people from almost every country in the world protesting against the arrogance of Bush and his band of warmongers may just lead to second thoughts about the wars against Iran and Syria which appear to be next on the American agenda.
The idea that the US has some form of corporate moral superiority is just ridiculous; ask the people of Chile or Vietnam. The US is concerned solely with its own interests. It should consider, however, that it may not be in its long-term interests to antagonise half the people on earth. - Yours, etc.,
PATRICK M. DUNNE,
Millmount Avenue,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
Madam, - "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" Looking at some of the recent scenes on television I can only conclude Bush and Blair have been misunderstood. It's obviously "Operation Iraqi Fry Them". - Yours, etc.,
TOM McCLELLAND,
Elton Court,
Leixslip,
Co Kildare.
Madam, - Saddam Hussein attempted to invoke Jihad on the infidels invading Iraq. This came from a man who ran a secular dictatorship, persecuted fellow Muslims in his own land for merely belonging to the wrong tribe and fought a war against Iran to prevent the spread of fundamentalist Islam in his country.
It would appear that he was trying to have his cake and eat it, claiming the faith when it suited him to attract hardliners from his own and other lands to carry out acts of martyrdom for his personal gain. One hopes that the greater Islamic community sees this for what it is: an insult to one of the pillars of their faith. - Yours, etc.
MARK HOLLAND,
Abbeycourt,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.
Madam, Conor O'Clery writes in your edition of April 9th of the planned transformation of Iraq as a "radical experiment in the heart of the Arab world" being projected by Messrs Bush and Blair. What is interesting but neglected in this formulation is that the "Arab world" has been subjected to a previous Western "radical experiment" - the creation of the State of Israel. Neither the partition of Palestine and the history of Israel, nor other Western interventions in the region such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the unseating of Mossadegh and the placing of the Pahlavi dynasty on the throne of Iran in 1953, Suez in 1956, the coup that installed Abdul Kassem in Iraq in 1963, the Lebanon quagmire in 1982, not to mention Western support for most of the most despotic, feudal, and violent governments of the region - none of these precedents give one much reason to hope for the new initiative.
We are told that the new Iraq will spend its wealth on "the well-being and prosperity of its people", "not on palaces and weapons of mass destruction". But the irony is that Iraq, a totalitarian regime as it was under the Ba'ath, spent its oil wealth on its people much more than any of the Gulf states towards which the US and the UK are so solicitous - on education, infrastructure, communications, massive and elaborate irrigation schemes.
Does anyone doubt that the corrupt, vicious and medieval Saud and Sabah dynasties have palaces as luxurious as anything Saddam Hussein constructed?
Regarding weapons of mass destruction, Israel is now believed to possess up to 300 nuclear warheads, and patently has the means to deliver them. Not merely this, but it has threatened to use such weapons: under pressure during the 1973 War, Israeli officials contemplated a nuclear attack on Syria, until the US increased its supply of conventional weapons.
Israel spends more per capita on defence than most countries in the world, making it the regional superpower. It manages this even as its economy spirals into decline. It manages this arguably due to US aid of $3 billion a year annum, mendaciously allocated in spite of amendments made in the 1970s to the Foreign Aid Act barring aid to any country engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons development.
Thus, the result of the major previous "radical experiment" in the Middle East was, in fact, to create a "rogue state" second only to the United States itself.
What future, then, for Iraq? - Yours, etc.,
CONOR McCARTHY,
Ireland-Palestine
Solidarity Campaign,
Dublin 2.
Madam, - The unprovoked and unjustified act of US forces who fired on and killed three media workers on Tuesday gives a new immediacy to the term "shooting the messenger". It must be inconvenient for the "coalition" war machine to have journalists on site who are prepared to tell the truth. We owe a great debt to those print and broadcast journalists who are prepared to risk their own lives and to defy the propaganda machines of both sides.
While RTÉ and The Irish Times have served their profession - and all of us - well and are to be congratulated, we owe a particular debt to some journalists of British, American and Arab origin, who have come under more pressure than most. The lies of the Iraqi dictatorship are pathetic and unbelievable, but it is odd, to say the least, to see those who supposedly defend "Western" standards of truth, justice and human rights stoop to the same tactics. Lower even: the Iraqis have killed no journalists in this conflict.
The sounds, images and words coming from Baghdad will strike like knives into the hearts of millions of Arabs and people worldwide. They will remember the murderousness, hypocrisy and callousness of this campaign long after the shooting has died down. - Yours, etc.,
PIARAS MAC ÉINRÍ,
Model Farm Road,
Cork.
Madam, - Together we stand, divided we fall. The UN has suffered its downfall through the shameful antics of Chirac. If all had stayed together, and kept the pressure on the mass murderer Saddam Hussein, very possibly this war would not have come about. Chirac threw him a lifeline which he gratefully grabbed. - Yours, etc.,
GEORGE BRISCOE,
Craystown,
Co Meath.
Madam, - Robbers, rapists and ruffians of all kinds regularly terrorise the citizens of Dublin without being hampered by the presence of a garda. It was fortunate, therefore, that squads of gardaí could be mobilised to protect the ruling classes from those revolting peasants who had the temerity to stand peacefully outside the gates of the Dáil to protest about the indiscriminate bombing of men, women and children in Iraq. - Yours, etc.,
CARMEL COURTNEY,
Sandyford Road,
Dublin 16.