Sir, – During the Iraq-Iran war, the United States failed to sanction or even condemn Saddam Hussein for his use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops. This is widely cited as one of the main reasons he used such weapons in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds – he believed he would, yet again, escape punishment.
It is vitally important that the West does not repeat history, and takes strong and decisive action against the Syrian government. Failure to do so will send the message, not only to Assad but also to every other tyrant in the region who faces an uprising, that they can use chemical weapons with impunity . This cannot be allowed to happen. This is no longer just about Syria. – Yours, etc,
COLM O’MAHONY,
Woodlands,
Greystones, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – When the police investigate a crime, they look for a perpetrator who had the “means”, “motive” and “opportunity”. The Assad regime certainly had the means and opportunity to deliver a chemical attack. Clearly they had no motive. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose by such an attack. The Syrian opposition, on the other hand, had every motive. It is in their clear interest to involve outside forces.
The United Nations has accused both sides of using chemical weapons in the past, so the opposition had the means and opportunity also. Whether they did this alone or were aided by American or British special forces, we will never know. It is, however, clear that Assad has been set up. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would come to this conclusion. We were lied to before the invasion of Iraq. We are being lied to now. – Yours, etc,
ALAN McPARTLAND,
Grange Court,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – Unlike most Irish people, I disincline to think that vested in me there is a god-ordained right and duty to lay down the law at length and in unlettered detail to Americans as to how they should be running their own affairs. However, in the light of current talk about intervention in Syria – and keeping in mind Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Afghanistan – perhaps I might advert to men such as Washington, Jefferson, Adams. They advised inter alia that America should not go abroad “seeking monsters to destroy”. The point, the why of it, was underlined a century later by the gentleman in Sils Maria, who counselled “. . who battles with monsters should take heed that he does not himself become thereby a monster”. – Yours, etc,
JOHN CULLY,
Monkstown Valley,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The media speculation on weather the US will bomb Syria must raise serious questions about what moral authority the US has to do so? Consider the role of the US military in its indiscriminate killings of Afghan civilians by unmanned drone aircraft and the barbaric killings of Afghan children and peasant farmers by US soldiers who called themselves the “Kill Team”. On Wednesday in Iraq 66 people were blown up in the continuing cycle of deaths. The US claimed moral authority in invading that country some 10 years ago and we all know what happened.
The people who sent their poison gases to kill innocent civilians in Syria deserve the highest sentence upon them, but in no way does that give the US government any moral authority to intervene in this crisis. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DORAN,
Monastery Walk,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.
Sir, – Further to Eugene Tannam’s letter (August 28th) on your Editorial (August 24th). In the course of the Vietnam war, in the period 1961-1972, the toxic defoliant and herbicide Agent Orange was used by US forces. The deliberate destruction of huge areas of forest and crops was bad enough, but it has been estimated that up to a half a million children have been born in these areas with horrific disabling birth defects. This is a continuing effect. White phosphorous and napalm were also in widespread use by the US in Vietnam.
During the invasion of Iraq the city of Fallujah came under intensive attack by US forces. There are continuing claims that many babies are now being born with severe defects due, it is claimed, to the use of depleted uranium in the artillery shelling of the city.
Finally in the course of an excellent article (Opinion, August 28th) Ivor Roberts attributes the 100,000 deaths in Syria so far to “indiscriminate massacres and the prolonged shelling of civilian areas by Assad’s forces”. Is he claiming that the many militia groups, covering a wide spectrum of types, have failed to kill anyone in the course of more than two years of civil war? – Yours, etc,
ALBERT COLLINS,
Bishopscourt Road,
Cork.
Sir, – Central to the problems in Syria, Egypt, Iran and Iraq is the divided state of Islamism. The daily slaughter of Islamists by fellow-Islamists must be a cause of great emotional hurt to people in the West. Military intervention by the West may seem to promise much, but delivers little. Surely the time has come, as Pope Francis and President Michael D Higgins have advocated, to open up a dialogue with the various conflicting strands within Islamism in order to end the mindless slaughter.
Historically, the western powers have exploited these divisions for political advantage. Such a multi-layered conference, as I propose, should have as its purpose to deconstruct the politicisation of religion, which has given rise to so many of the world’s problems in the past. Surely it is a worthy project to which our leaders in the West might aspire! – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER
McCORMACK,
Cavan Road,
Kells,
Co Meath.
Sir, – If the situation in Syria is the worst humanitarian crisis since the Cold War, as asserted by António Gutteres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, what does the crisis tell us about the state of the international humanitarian system today? The UN Security Council is hamstrung by the opposing views of its permanent members.
After the Rwandan genocide, everyone said “never again”. The UN set itself the task of delivering on that promise. It tried to reconcile, on the one hand, the sovereignty of member-states with, on the other hand, the protection of populations from mass atrocities inflicted or permitted by those member-states.
To this end, the set of principles known as “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” emerged in 2000. This week the US administration is citing these principles in support of the lawfulness of intervention in the absence of a UN resolution.
In a nutshell, R2P meant sovereignty was a duty rather than a right. And if a member-state failed in its duty to protect its people from mass atrocities, this would engage a process of response from the UN.
If it turns out that R2P is the authority upon which an intervention is justified, it is difficult to understand why it has taken so long for these principles to be mobilised. Surely the conditions for activation of the principles were met a long time ago. If this is the basis for intervention it is likely to be viewed with deep cynicism.
There is something deeply wrong with the inertia that has characterised the response to the Syrian crisis. Each opportunity missed has condemned Syria to more suffering and a more tortuous recovery.
The international community must now demonstrate enough political will to provide for the basic needs of the Syrian population, whatever about the more complex issues around intervention.
GOAL is engaged on its largest ever humanitarian intervention in an effort to meet the needs of the many millions of internally displaced people in northern Syria. The people we meet are at a loss to understand why nothing has been done for the past two and a half years to protect the population. The Syrians we meet are fearful for their country, but hope that the events of the pst seven days might bring their suffering to an end. – Yours, etc,
BARRY ANDREWS,
CEO, GOAL,
PO Box 19,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The outcry over the use of chemical weapons in Syria is enormously dishonest. Are we to take it, by inference, that the use of missiles and bullets to kill people is humane? The truth is the war in Iraq, the West’s designs on Middle Eastern oil, and financial speculation in commodities, including basic foodstuffs, have largely created the trouble in Syria.
The posturing over the use of chemical weapons is a mere PR smokescreen, designed to hide this truth, and the West’s greedy, self-interested abuse of the suffering peoples of the Middle East, over a long period, led, as always, by the United States. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming. – Yours, etc,
DAVID FREELEY,
Clonard,
Wexford.