Sir, - Just when I thought that Fintan O'Toole, in urging a Yes vote on the Nice Treaty (Opinion, June 5th), was finally talking sense on international affairs - mirabile lectu - he goes and endorses an AfrI pamphlet! Its "principal point", O'Toole argues, "is that EU defence and security policy is intimately bound up with NATO and that NATO itself is often a threat to democracy and human rights, driven as much by the interests of the arms trade as by the dictates of international law. In this, is absolutely right."
Never mind the solecistic abuse of "absolutely" - rampant for decades among autodidacts with intellectual pretensions. Never mind the witless confusion of consequence with cause - the standardisation of weaponry follows upon entry into NATO, it doesn't drive the desire to join up. That is to be found in the history of the Central and Eastern European countries over the last half-century. But never mind what Vaclav Havel believes. Or what the democratic leaders of the NATO memberstates believe. Mr O'Toole and AfrI know better. This is what really grates - this glib pandering to insular self-righteousness.
Yet once again, Mr O'Toole and AfrI are saying to NATO (actually) if the truth be acknowledged, to the Americans), "Here's this horrific situation which we peace-loving people have proven incapable of resolving (witness Srebrenice). Please take care of it for us but don't offend our sensibilities while you're at it." Absolutely, Mr O'Toole - Yours, etc.,
G.T. Dempsey, Blackrock, Co Dublin.