Madam, - In response to Kevin Myers's many complimentary comments in your newspaper on the US administration and its role in world affairs, I should like to point out the following.
In the years following the second World War, the US was able to use the UN as its tool: whatever the US wanted the UN tamely acceded to. As more nations (less positively disposed towards the US) joined the UN the US had increasingly to resort to pressure, primarily economic, to get its will obeyed. And now, as in the case of Iraq, the US acts unilaterally without the permission of the UN. If any single nation has destroyed the UN it is the US, not France.
Much has been made of the fact that Israel has violated more UN resolutions than did Saddam. That is true and scandalous, but what is rarely noted is that the US is itself guilty of massive non-compliance with UN resolutions through its frequent and purely self-interested use of the veto. It would be unthinkable, of course, that the US should face "serious consequences" for its obdurate behaviour.
It is true that Saddam presided over a vicious regime responsible for the torture and deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis. However, his record is put in the ha'penny place by that of the US which, through its invasions and interventions in Indochina, Indonesia, Central America and Latin America was responsible for the torture and deaths of millions. The time is perhaps not altogether too green for the unthinkable suggestion that the US is ripe for regime change. Unfortunately there seems to be no power strong enough to effect it. - Yours, etc.,
PETER MEW, The Cova, Kiltegan, Co Wicklow.