ANTHONY REDMOND,
Sir, - Like just about everyone, I was deeply shocked and revolted by the monstrous attack on the United States on September 11th 2001.
I supported the removal of the demented Taliban from power in Afghanistan. They had sheltered and supported Bin Laden and his war machine. However, I find myself profoundly troubled by the US and British governments' warlike approach to Iraq.
The unfortunate people of Iraq have suffered so much as a result of the sanctions imposed upon them since the Gulf War. Over a million children have died in that country for lack of basic medicines. It is outrageous. Now, George Bush and Tony Blair are threatening to attack Iraq.
The Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, representing Britain's leading Catholic theologians, have issued a statement condemning any attack on Iraq. They make it clear that this could not be considered a just war. They say: "The rhetoric of the so-called war against terrorism is being used to legitimate the selective and morally arbitrary use of violence against regimes whose interests conflict with our own. We fear that our country is being drawn into complicity with what would amount to an act of state terrorism in pursuit of a dangerously uncertain political outcome."
Surely, as we remember and pray for all those poor people who were so brutally and callously murdered in the United States on September 11th, it is unthinkable and unjustifiable that Bush and Blair (without any backing from the UN Security Council) should declare war on Iraq, thus causing the deaths of perhaps thousands of innocent people.
Where will this vicious bellicosity end? One thing is clear: President Bush is succeeding in creating a whole generation of young people in the Arab world who have a passionate hatred of the United States and its total disregard for their rights and aspirations. Is it too much to hope that the Irish Government will have the courage and moral integrity to speak out strongly against any attack on Iraq?
Yes, I too, would like to see Saddam Hussein gone from power, just as one would like to see the departure of many dictators around the world, but there can be no moral justification for a war against Iraq with all the dreadful suffering that will inevitably follow. - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY REDMOND,
North Great George's Street,
Dublin 1.
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Sir, - If I am walking down a dark street alone, late at night, and I spot a dangerous-looking individual with a fearsome reputation standing in a doorway, am I within my rights to deliver a series of pre-emptive blows to the head and body, rounded off with the ultimate pre-emptive boot to the groin - just in case he might have decided to attack me?
Yours, etc.,
THOMAS FANTHOM,
Newcastle,
Co Wicklow.
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Sir, - How noble of Tony Blair to offer to pay a blood price to his liege lord George W. Bush - not his own blood, of course, but that of the soldiers who will be dispatched to the war front. A heroic gesture, indeed! - Yours, etc.,
M.M.IRELAND,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.