Sir, - Kevin Myers contends that a massacre of prisoners by the Northern Alliance was "intellectually and morally irreproachable", and seeks to rubbish the opinions of those who think otherwise (An Irishman's Diary, December 12th).
While space does not permit a thorough examination of all the points he raised, three of them demand immediate attention. Firstly, if in any war the rules that bind civilisation together are dissolved, where does this leave the characterisation of the current conflict as one between civilisation and barbarity? Surely a civilisation is defined as such by its adherence to certain codes of conduct? To suggest that a civilisation can shed such rules during wartime and remain a civilisation is a little like suggesting that one who tells the truth is trustworthy, even when he or she is lying.
Secondly, the idea of the killing of unarmed people (at least some of the Taliban prisoners had been bound before they were shot) as a merciful act in the long term is an opaque one, to put it mildly. Is it not analogous to the justification employed by many of the 20th-century dictatorships that Mr Myers has bitterly denounced elsewhere? This doesn't suffice to show that his characterisation of the killing of the prisoners in this case is incorrect, but at the very least it should give him pause for thought.
Again, it prompts the question: if the supposedly civilised can commit any atrocity as long as the ends justify it, in what precise way do they differ from the supposedly barbarous?
Thirdly, even if one allows Mr Myers his claim that real evil exists in the world, he must still do a lot more to show that this campaign ostensibly being waged against such evil is a valid or just one. In particular, he must give us good grounds to believe that this campaign is not itself a manifestation of precisely those evils its apologists claim it is targeting.
The recent slaughter of prisoners of war is, I suggest, unfortunately timed for such rhetorical manoeuvres. - Yours, etc.,
Donnchadh O'Conaill, Duisburgerstrasse, Berlin, Germany.