Madam, - Dominick Donnelly trotted out the usual peacenik rubbish in your letters page (April 3rd). Firstly, neutrality and defencelessness are not the same. Neutral states, amongst which Ireland is not numbered, have an obligation to defend themselves with more than moral arguments. Consequently the foremost neutral states in Europe, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, all have highly effective defence forces.
Of course, should a superpower or alliance of states decide to invade one of these countries they would be able to do no more than slow down the enemy attack and make it as expensive as possible for him. At the moment the only country capable of standing alone against any attack is the US, everyone else is going to need help. Therefore, since we are loath to finance a credible defence we should join a defence alliance of some kind.
My own preference would be NATO since an EU alliance would be dominated by France and Germany who recently proved themselves incapable of putting international welfare before their domestic requirements.
Membership of some sort of alliance will be necessary if we are to continue to contribute to the global community in a peacekeeping role, since traditional UN missions are now part of history and peacekeeping missions in future will be delegated by the UN to regional alliances such as NATO.
Mr Donnelly also ridiculously lauds the Indian people for their love of peace. This would be the same India that is constantly on the brink of nuclear war with Pakistan, with whom it has already been to war twice as well as having fought with China.
With armed forces of approximately 1.5 million personnel India is nobody's ideal of a "bastion of peace".
Nor indeed is Ireland, where we regularly pat ourselves on the back, claiming to be a naturally peace-loving nation while our young people run riot on the streets after pub closing and political violence has been elevated to the status of religion.
Perversely, even our "pacifists" see no paradox in vandalising property or assaulting politicians and Gardai. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL DOLAN,
Wilderness Grove,
Clonmel,
Co Tipperary.
Madam, - I suppose Mr Dominick Donnelly's letter was only crying out for a justifiable hiding. Like all blinkered idealists, he makes what he thinks are astute observations on history and draws all the wrong inferences. Disband our military? - sure: the only incursion we were ever likely to have to defend against was militant republicanism. And even that hasn't gone away,you know.
Gandhi's passive resistance was directed against the UK, a liberal democracy jaded after years of European wars and weighted down by an empire it could no longer afford to police. Ask a Kosovar Albanian whether similar tactics would have worked against the Serbs. Or a Tutsi, against the Hutus.
By all means be cynical about US foreign policy but please leave out the sanctimonious bilge about how great we all would be without armies. Would Mr Donnelly prefer his first language to be Russian now; or German, with passable Japanese? Perhaps a dash of Chinese will be more to his taste in the years to come? For the last 50 years, Neutrality has been our great moral cop-out. Not only did the ostriches get to eat their cake; we got to have it on the cheap as well.
Well security comes at a price but since we live in a hemisphere invisibly protected by American might, we tend to forget about the one who pays. Who? Not us. Not if Mr Donnelly gets his way.
We're too busy being a "bastion of peace". It's America's sons who spill their blood to make this a safe world, yes even for those who like to spout his kind of pious cant. Thank God they take security seriously, even if we don't. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL DOWLING,
Coolrua Drive,
Beaumont,
Dublin 9.