Sir, - The US, as the most powerful political and economic entity in the world, has been involved in many abuses of power, as John de Courcy Ireland has pointed out. To label it the greatest bully of them all, however, does not seem to me to accord with the facts.
In this century alone Nazi Germany tried to remove one whole race of people from the face of the earth. Stalin's Russia got rid of up to 20 millions of its own citizens. It can be argued that both these regimes would still be in existence but for the US. Imagine if either of these regimes had been the sole nuclear power in 1945.
That is just looking at this century. Our next door neighbours, during many centuries of imperial domination, subjected the people of this island to systematic degradation and dehumanisation to the extent that they got rid of a quarter of the population, all citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the time, through starvation or migration.
When I think of the alternatives, therefore, I consider myself lucky to have lived during the period that the US was the dominant power. I recognise its many offences, but John de Courcy Ireland's contention that the US is the biggest imperial bully of them all is somewhat over the top. - Yours, etc., Tony Leavy,
Shielmartin Drive, Dublin 13.