Sir, - In response to James Schlesinger's opinion piece in your edition of May 22nd, I would like to query whether Europe has suddenly acceded to the United States. From the tone of the column it seems that Mr Schlesinger thinks that Europe is now as independent of the US as, say, Indiana.
Furthermore, his reasoning on many points is flawed. The only reason why repudiating the anti-ballistic-missile treaty didn't cause a new arms race was that Russia is incapable of keeping up with the US any more.
On Kyoto, the fact that the US, with 270 million people creates over 20 per cent of global pollution, whereas China with a population of over 1 billion people creates about 2 per cent of world pollution speaks for itself.
In the case of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh wasn't the aggressor in the various conflicts that afflicted the country after the second world war, as I recall France and the South Vietnamese government, both militarily supported by the US, were the guilty parties in Vietnam.
Finally, on the issue of the Middle East conflict, Ehud Barak's "generous offer" was less than what the Palestinians are legally entitled to under international law.
Surely this allows the various sovereign nations of Europe to criticise US policy and offer a different solution. - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN SHANAHAN,
Ennis,
Co Clare.