ROSSA FITZGERALD,
Madam, - I am writing in response to your Editorial of November 29th in which you discuss the apparent resurgence of al-Qaeda's deadly activities. I feel it is essential that the US administration, before launching a possible preventive strike against Iraq, considers the perceptions that its military interventions have created and will continue to create among sections of the Islamic world.
In this regard, the administration should recall that the leaders of al-Qaeda have expressly dated the commencement of their murderous operations to the Kuwait War of 1990-1991. Then, the actions of a US-led coalition of "like-minded nations" were perceived by al-Qaeda (and I quote from that organisation's founding statement) as American "eagerness to destroy Iraq" and as evidence of the "Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people."
The US realised on September 11th 2001 that al-Qaeda and its ilk are capable of acting on such perceptions, be they spurious or otherwise. Is it not, then, conceivable that renewed US-led force-of-arms in Iraq, notwithstanding its stated objective, may serve to reinforce such invidious perceptions and consequently precipitate further merciless attacks? - Yours, etc.,
ROSSA FITZGERALD, Carrickbrennan Lawn, Monkstown, Co Dublin.