Madam, - Colm Stephens of the Irish Anti-War Movement calls on the public to "renew opposition to the Iraq war" (Opinion, March 19th).
Mr Stephens is correct up to a point. George Bush's instigation of the conflict was pure folly, for which we can only hope that he and Mr Blair suffer by loss of political office. However, to withdraw precipitately from Iraq now would be just as great an act of folly. It would abandon Iraq to internal strife, and perhaps a takeover by fundamentalists as evil as the Taliban.
I suggest to Mr Stephens that our actions on Iraq should match as much as possible the wishes of Iraqi people themselves. We know through a recent poll (available on the BBC website) that most Iraqis feel their lot is improving. The majority reject fundamentalism and wish for a democratic future. On the other hand, they have little trust in the American occupation and fervently desire their own national government.
Surely Irish policy should combine firm advocacy of UN leadership in both Iraq and Afghanistan with an insistence that the Americans follow through on their promises of democracy. This is a far more just course of action than allowing those countries to suffer renewed agonies under a new crop of dictators. It is little short of lunatic that an "anti-war" movement can demand the withdrawal of UN-sanctioned NATO personnel from Afghanistan, an act that would plunge that country back into the vicious strife it endured for over 20 years.
It should be added that assisting Middle Eastern countries to "prosper and rule themselves", as Mr Stephens says, is exactly what the terrorists reject. Al-Qaeda demands a fundamentalist Koranic state from Morocco to Pakistan, and it would regard Mr Stephens as much an enemy as George Bush. It is true there is little on offer here in a choice of evils. But, to quote Abraham Lincoln, "I would consent to any great evil, to avoid a greater one". - Yours etc.,
TOBY JOYCE, Balreask Manor, Navan, Co Meath.
Madam, - David Rolfe (March 24th) is at least as uninformed as he claims Colm Stephens to be. He tells us that al-Qaeda's aim is the extermination of "Western civilisation": has he read a document or heard a statement to that effect? On the other hand, al-Qaeda, on the basis of known statements and interviews by Osama bin Laden, is well known to desire the withdrawal of US forces from the holy ground of Saudi Arabia, and an end to the current regime in that country.
Mr Rolfe says al-Qaeda had a "mercifully brief" experience of government in Afghanistan: in fact al-Qaeda has had no experience of government anywhere; Afghanistan was governed by the Taliban during al-Qaeda's time in that unhappy country.
What evidence is there that Saddam Hussein "pretended" to possess weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Rolfe says? How can Saddam have "pretended" to have WMD if, in Mr Rolfe's words, they "were thankfully detected, documented and destroyed by the UN"?
Mr Rolfe's self-righteous fury has clearly confused him: he might even be helping to make a "rational public debate on these subjects almost impossible". - Yours, etc.,
CONOR McCARTHY, De Vesci Court, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.