Madam, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, May 15th) needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
He must know that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq was not carried out to expose the butchered victims of Saddam at Hillah.
He must know that the war and occupation have been carried out in accordance with the grand designs of a coterie of neo-conservatives who know nothing of life outside the Washington Beltway.
He must know that many of these same people, in their previous manifestation in the Reagan administration, treated with and "tilted towards" Saddam's Iraq in its war of aggression against Iran.
He must know that they did this precisely while they were aware that Saddam was creating many Hillahs. Kevin Myers must know all these things.
Or does he? How is it he twitters on about "freedom" in Iraq now?
Funny kind of "freedom" that sees unmitigated chaos in the country; that sees its cultural heritage ransacked; that involves US troops shooting down Iraqi civilians in Bloody Sunday-like massacres; that sees American corporations close to the Bush administration, such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton, put in charge of reconstruction and paid out of the oil revenues we are told belong to the Iraqi people.
Mr Myers should call a spade a spade: colonialism is back, and he thinks it is a good thing, too. - Yours, etc.,
CONOR McCARTHY, De Vesci Court, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.