Madam, - US ambassador James C Kenny (Opinion & Analysis, April 14th) claims that the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay is an essential element in the fight "to make the world safe from terrorism". Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Kenny argues that the global "war on terror" presents the international community with unprecedented challenges that cannot be addressed through existing international legal mechanisms. But he fails completely to outline why existing international laws are so inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat from al-Qaeda.
Western states have faced the threat of international terrorism before - especially from extremist Palestinian groups in the 1970s - without resorting to illegal prisons, covert rendition and torture. The ambassador also fails to realise that states which abandon or undermine legal rules in the name of fighting terror play into the hands of terrorists. Illegal repression serves only to discredit democratic governments and generate increased support for terrorist campaigns.
The existence of Guantánamo as an illegal prison is the greatest single mistake of the US "war on terror". It makes a mockery of the claim that the US is fighting a global conflict for democracy and the rule of law. Why should any despotic ruler in the Middle East take the US commitment to human rights seriously when the world's most powerful democracy holds prisoners without trial, redefines what is meant by torture and conducts secret renditions of people who have committed no crime? Moreover Guantánamo makes the world a more dangerous place - it acts as a rallying cry for Islamic extremists and provides a welcome propaganda tool for al-Qaeda. The practices at Guantánamo do far greater damage to the international reputation of the United States than to al-Qaeda's terrorist network.
Mr Kenny says that "it is easy to criticise us but difficult to offer solutions". How about this as a solution? Close Guantánamo, restore the international reputation of the United States and start to conduct the struggle against al-Qaeda by legal means, by putting terrorists on trial for their crimes. - Yours, etc,
JOHN WALSH, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath.