PAUL BOWLER,
A chara, - For Breda O'Brien's Harry Potter and the Treaty of Nice (October 12th) read Harry Potter in the Realm of Teenage Paranoia. It can only be an adolescent fascination with conspiracy theories that would inspire such a trite diatribe. What is sinister about complexity? The EU is a unique project. The voluntary pooling of sovereignty between several democratic independent nation states is unprecedented.
And the key word is "democratic". Democracy is defined as the rule of the majority with the rights and privileges of the minority institutionally respected. In a small nation such as Ireland the layers upon layers of laws and their interpretations guaranteeing an individual's rights are all but inpenetrable to the untrained eye. How then does a system, which is exponentially larger, exist without a degree of complexity? Would Ms O'Brien care to identify that sinister élite who she is certain is up to no good?
Perhaps Ms O'Brien would also explain her misgivings concerning the Rapid Reaction Force. I would not imply that she is an apologist for Srebenice, but she is a citizen of a nation, like me, that has blood on its hands. We sat idly by and did nothing. Irish participation in an RRF action must be UN-mandated. That is simple fact. It is also fact that lightly armed Dutch soldiers were forced to stand aside so that the massacre could take place.
Can Ms O'Brien tell me the difference between those Dutch soldiers and the RRF? Eight thousand boys and men would still be alive today if they had been protected by the RRF. - Is mise,
PAUL BOWLER,
Grosvenor Park,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.