Madam, - It is interesting that the "neo-con" view - the perspective that underlies the present US administration's policy - enjoys such strong support from Irish Times letter-writers and columnists.
Eric Deane (September 10th) writes that we have to defeat the beliefs that underlie Islamic fundamentalist terrorist atrocities primarily by military means. Tony Allwright (September 9th) says we "need to hunt down such non-state actors and kill them. No excuses". (Nonsense, of course, since he is talking about suicide bombers.) And John Waters tells us (Opinion, September 6th), in his ridiculous use of the Beslan atrocity to justify the policies of Bush and Blair, that they are protecting our children's lives.
Military adventures advocated by the neo-cons - such as invading Iraq (for dubious reasons, but stated as the defence of freedom and democracy) - can only have strengthened Arab unrest and Islamic fundamentalism and increased the likelihood of further terrorist atrocities. Palestinians are unjustly treated in their own land and are having their homes and their land stolen from them by the US's ally Israel. They have wide support in the Arab world and the unquestioning US defence of Israel's militarily-enforced apartheid policy - for US domestic political reasons - foments further anti-Western beliefs. Russian military policy in Chechnya, where the populat -ion has been decimated, has increased the risk of further anti-civilian atrocities in Russia.
What is it with the neo-cons' world view that they have no concept of cause, and no idea other than war - bombing, killing, terrorising and invading other countries, and blaming those who react atrociously to state-sponsored terrorism for being the "terrorists" whose actions justify further killing by the state. But then, perhaps they have the clinching argument - that those of us who disagree are just "Pollyanna pacifists". - Yours, etc.,
GERRY MOLLOY, Collins Avenue, Dublin 9.
Madam, - I agree that Russia is not blameless in relation to the wretched state of the Caucasus and Chechnya in particular, but that in no way excuses or mitigates the horrors of Beslan. As Kevin Myers wrote recently, one would hope that people will now realise the new evil we face, but some letter-writers such as Dominic Bryan (September 7th) would dispute this.
In my view, we face a new and unprecedented threat. The Islamists of al-Qaeda and its associates, though they have political goals, have no desire to negotiate with anyone (which differentiates them from, say, the IRA). They seek merely our destruction. As Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, neatly put it, "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." They would detonate a nuclear bomb in a Western city without hesitation.
Putting the phrase war on terror in quotation marks and making condescending, smart-alecky comments about George W. Bush and the US make us look soft and decadent, not clever or insightful.
Mr Bryan's conclusion that US citizens are "clearly not in danger" of terrorist attack is staggering. If US citizens were in danger three years ago, what has happened in the meantime to change this?
I applaud President Bush's strong leadership but the struggle is far from over. - Yours etc.,
K.M. CUDDIHY, Carrigaline, Co Cork.