Madam, - Condoleezza Rice has a point (front-page report, August 27th). It is appalling to think that a world superpower has provided military training to separatist rebels, encouraged them to engage in warfare so as to break away, and backed them up with massive firepower, killing an unknown number of people and displacing thousands of innocent civilians. But if we are appalled that Russia has done so in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, how can we accept the fact that the United States and other Nato powers have done so in Kosovo?
If we say that we should support those who revolt against the enemies of democracy, tyrants like Slobodan Milosevic, how can we stay quiet about Mikhail Saakashvili's intimidation of the political opposition at the time of the Georgian presidential election, or about Nato providing military assistance to somebody with such dodgy democratic credentials?
A few more points to ponder: Is the build-up of Nato warships in the Black Sea more likely to promote the emergence of a Europe that is "whole, free and at peace", or one that is bitterly divided by a new cold war?
Which country or power bloc stands to gain most from provoking mutual suspicion and conflict in eastern Europe: (a) the European Union; (b) Russia; or (c) the United States? And which one has least at stake?
- Yours, etc,
COILÍN Ó HAISEADHA, Bóthar Inse Chór, Cill Mhaighneann, Baile Átha Cliath 8.
Madam, - Why does your columnist Charles Krauthammer think it is perfectly fine for the US illegally to invade another sovereign state but not OK for Russia to do the same? The Russian response to US nuclear weapons in Poland is surely similar to the hysterical reaction by the US to Russian missiles in Cuba in the early 1960s.
It seems that today, as then, the attitude is the same: ethics,morality and the law doesn't apply to the US. Only to everyone else.
- Yours, etc,
DERMOT SWEENEY, Ushers Island, Dublin 8.
Madam, - Frank Schnittger (August 25th) claims that "evidence indicates" that Georgia's US lobbyist Randy Scheunemann secretly encouraged Georgia's actions in South Ossetia.
Well, I haven't seen a shred of evidence to support his claim about Mr Scheunemann. And the assertion that war may have occurred to help give John McCain a "bounce" in the polls is one of the weirdest things I have yet read on the conflict. The overwhelming evidence available is that Russia has been destabilising and provoking Georgia for years.
Mr Schnittger is right about the considerable interdependence between western and eastern Europe. However, Russia's intimidation of its tiny neighbours and former colonies has cast a shadow over east-west co-operation.
- Yours, etc,
SEAN STEELE, Kilfenora Road, Kimmage, Dublin 12.