Sir, – Russia’s autocratic ruler Vladimir Putin has reacted brutally to the ousting of Victor Yanukovich, who was responsible for violent assaults against the people of Ukraine. It is now well to remember the words of Thomas Jefferson that people are endowed “with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – that to secure these rights governments are instituted . . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government”.
For all those who value such rights in their own nation it is time to stand with the people of Ukraine. If the response to Mr Putin’s aggression is nothing more than rhetorical red lines, who can say he will stop at Ukraine while there are Russian-speaking populations across eastern Europe?
It is indeed time to stand together or hang separately. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN
Shandon Street,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – “Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be ‘deeply destabilising’, the US president said” (Obama warns Putin against intervention in Ukraine, World News, March 1st). As opposed to our “stablising” interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Iran . . . and our machinations in Ukraine and other Russian border regions?
As Roger Cole implies (March 1st), unless some hard truths are spoken to the deaf ears of rampant power, another dark age will inevitably descend.
It is way past time for the pillars of our society to cease preening on being allowed to sit at the Nato table with the big boys and to engage both brain and a trace of spinal cord. – Yours, etc,
DAMIEN FLINTER,
Castleview Estate,
Headford,
Co Galway.
Sir, – I have no sympathy whatsoever with the current Russian actions in the Crimea. Indeed, as an Irishman, I am only too aware of the historical constant: that major powers are ever in the position to bully and invade weaker countries and justify this in terms of their own strategic interests or so-called humanitarian concerns. But I do wish the same powers would spare us the arrant hypocrisy of tut-tut-ing each other. – Yours, etc,
AODH Ó DOMHNAILL,
Green Road,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.