Sir, - There seems to be little media interest in the continuing killings of civilian Afghans as the relentless aerial and ground bombardments continue. Is this collusion or apathy?
One Sunday newspaper carried a story of how an entire Afghan village was wiped off the face of the earth by US stray missiles - and there the story rested. The US and British forces operating in Afghanistan seem to have only one objective in mind - the annihilation of Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network and nothing, not even civilian lives, will get in their way.
The UN Security Council stays silent, but the voice of Mary Robinson as Commissioner of Human Rights is a lone voice in the wilderness as she calls for the implementation of the Geneva Conventions, especially in these aerial attacks. How she continues in her role as the United Nations proclaimer and protector of human rights is beyond me, as human rights are blatantly ignored in Israel and Palestine as well as Afghanistan.
We had some hope of peaceful resolution of international conflicts while Bill Clinton was in office, but now under the Bush administration the world is slipping slowly but surely back into a lawless jungle where naked military might is replacing respect for human rights as the way to resolve conflict.
We entered the new millennium with great hopes for a peaceful generation where respect for human rights would be the mark of the new age, but the dream has turned into yet another illusion and left people betrayed and desperate. -
Yours, etc.,
Brendan Butler, Swords, Co Dublin.