Sir, - Some years ago it was suggested from within the New Ireland Group that Islam would become the rallying focus for the disaffected people of the world, in particular for those who, for one reason or another, associate their marginalised status with the negative effects of various forms of Western colonisation.
Irish people are well aware of such effects on both coloniser and colonised and because of this, Ireland could be working to place itself in the position of honest broker between the materialistic Western World and the emerging awareness of global Islamic consciousness. To do so Ireland should value perpetuation of its independent policy of positive (constructive) peace-making, peace-keeping neutrality.
So it is that we cannot understand, let alone condone, that no official voices seem to have been raised loudly to condemn the United States' action as self-appointed global policemen in the Sudan and in Afghanistan.
Just because some Islamic leaders may not have found the courage to condemn unequivocally the profanity of the carnage caused by the bombing of the US embassies, that should not mean that leaders in Ireland should refrain from condemning in public what the US did in Afghanistan and Sudan. - Yours, etc., John Robb,
Chairman, New Ireland Group, Charlotte Street, Ballymoney, Co Antrim.