Madam, - Suppose a diehard republican, disillusioned with the peace process, planted a bomb somewhere in the North and fled to the Republic after the atrocity.
Then suppose British intelligence tracked down the culprit and the RAF dropped a 500lb bomb to kill the bomber, wiping out some of his neighbours as well.
What would the Irish Government's reaction be?
Judging by the lack of condemnation of the murder of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, our Government would approve of terrorist suspects (and innocent bystanders) being blown to bits instead of being subject to due process.
Unless we live by the rule of law, how can we criticise "terrorists"? How can we in the West condemn al-Qaeda for its outrages, when the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of between 38,000 and 42,000 civilians (www.iraqibodycount.net)? For decades, we looked on the US as our protector against the Soviet Union. Today, who will protect us from the United States? - Yours, etc,
JACK DOWNEY, Old Cratloe Road, Caherdavin, Co Limerick.
A chara, - In the article headed "Fears killing may lead to retaliatory attacks" (The Irish Times, June 9th) Michael Jansen writes: "There were fears last night in Iraq that the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted Sunni Muslim militant in the country, could lead to a spike in attacks on US and Iraqi targets by his faction in retaliation for his assassination" (my italics).
The fact is, this was not an "assassination"; it was a co-ordinated military operation against a known terrorist enemy of Iraq and the world in general. I find the use of this terminology appalling.
Further, in general terms, there are millions of us in the United States of America who are proud of our Irish ancestry - and we are at a total loss as to why there appears to be such a strong anti-American sentiment expressed by your newspaper. Quite a number of innocent Irish-Americans were brutally murdered by al-Quaeda on September 11th, 2001. Will your newspaper continue its anti-US stance when fundamentalist Muslim terrorists attack in Dublin or other parts of Ireland? I'd think not. - Is mise,
JERRY BELEW, Llano, Texas, USA.