Madam, - The first casualty is not truth, but language. In your edition of September 8th two regrettable phrases occur.
Madam, - The first casualty is not truth, but language. In your edition of September 8th two regrettable phrases occur.
Kevin Myers refers to the current Spanish government as a "government of quislings" and Col J.P. Duggan claims that Vincent Browne's alleged "trivialisation of the 'commander in chief of the armed forces' is unbelievably irresponsible, bordering on the subversive". These phrases would be silly or amusing if they were not also dangerous.
The Spanish people, after the atrocities committed by al-Qaeda in Madrid last March, rejected the lies of the then government, which sought to blame ETA. In the election, an otherwise competent if right-wing government was rejected, not because of the pressure of "terrorists" or Spain's role in Iraq, but because of its own lies.
To call Prime Minister Zapatero and his colleagues "quislings", with all of the historical and emotional baggage which this entails, is inaccurate and over the top.
As for President McAleese, who has in my opinion been a competent and warm President, if less ideologically inclined than her predecessor (for whom I voted at the time), Vincent Browne is perfectly entitled, as a contrarian and often critical journalist, to criticise her term in office. But labelling his criticisms as "bordering on the subversive" revives unfortunate memories of the 1970s and the Heavy Gang, for whom all criticism of the State was "subversive".
In the contemporary context it also recalls the type of information and reporting practised by President Putin after the Beslan atrocity, where honest journalists can be dismissed for telling the truth and an autocratic and dictatorial administration is absolved from its own murderous responsibilities in Chechyna. - Yours. etc.,
PIARAS MAC ÉINRÍ, Model Farm Road, Cork.