Madam, - John Waters (Opinion, April 14th) has, intentionally or otherwise, rightly identified the underlying moral attitude of the leaders and supporters of the US-led invasion of Iraq. That "coalition" has indeed behaved like a "group of like-minded individuals" who, impatient with due legal process, grabbed "a few hurley sticks and broke down doors".
Maybe John Waters would like to live in an Ireland where such hurley-stick morality would once again rule the day, and in a wider world in which a few self-appointed, like-minded, "resolute, manly", cruise-missile-firing countries would decide who goes and who stays.
I suspect, however, that most people are glad that such moral vigilantes are now thinner on the ground in Ireland than they once were, and that the wielders of hurley sticks now face the full rigours of the law, rather then the raucous cheers of their bar-room backers.
I also suspect that what troubles people most about the activities of the "coalition of the willing" is not the illegal and violent removal of the universally deplored Saddam Hussein, but that they have now discovered their ability to flout international law with impunity. This will, no doubt, encourage them - and others - to make the hurley-stick morality the basis of a "new world order" and to replace international law with international vigilantism. - Yours etc,
HARRY McCAULEY, Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Madam, - It strikes me while reading the crass triumphalism of Kevin Myers and the moral superiority of John Waters that, in effect, logic has been turned on its head. I don't know if either contributor has an interest in sport but I wonder if they feel that all victories justify everything that went before in this sphere too. Is every football player who dives in the penalty-box vindicated because his team has won? Is every rugby player who stamps on an opponent to put him out of the game vindicated because he lifts the cup? Was Martin Johnson vindicated for being rude to our president because England achieved the Grand Slam?
Perhaps sport, being essentially trivial compared with war, is not an appropriate analogy, but these examples contain the essence of why those who supported alternatives to war were correct to do so and should stick to their principles in the face of such ranting from apparently intelligent men.
We have got rid of a dictator and that is wonderful. Even assuming that his successor is the most benign ruler on the planet, Mr Myers and Mr Waters are missing the fact that, instead of taking a more patient approach that kept world opinion onside, we have now traded a contained despot for a world where other countries might easily decide to settle old scores. And how many more despots might result? We have fouled and cheated and broke international laws in achieving this victory; and now, why should the rest of the world bother following international law themselves? Will the United States be able to contain any major war which results from the mantra which it has now demonstrated is so successful?
I look forward to both contributors actually telling me what their vision for the future is rather than trying to discredit the opposite side of the argument. Perhaps they could work together on an article which explains why it was a positive step to trade the world's policeman for the world's vigilante. - Yours, etc.,
COLIN McGOVERN, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Madam, - Recently I returned home to Dublin for a brief visit and wondered if I had landed on a different planet. I knew the conflict in Iraq was not entirely popular in Ireland, but I had no idea my erstwhile countrymen had fallen under the spell of some mass delusion.
Sufferers clutched at my sleeve and described a phantasmal parallel universe teeming with oil-grabbing American politicians, their half-witted milksop soldiers, invincible Republican Guards and of course, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children. There was also the usual stuff about the sun-bleached Mesopotamian wastes being the "new Vietnam". Was I not ashamed to be living and paying taxes in a country up to its eyeballs in this Anglo-Saxon military-industrial hegemonic outrage?
Well, no, actually.
Perhaps the adherents of this cult of moral equivocation and self-deception found inspiration from horoscopes or tea-leaves. More likely, though, they took their cue from the Irish establishment and the torrent of dire prognostications from that source in the past months - people such as Niall Andrews, Ivana Bacik, Mark Brennock, Jimmy Breslin, John Bruton, Vincent Browne, Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Eyal, Colm Fahy, Garret FitzGerald, Brian Friel, John Gormley, Paul Gillespie, Tony Gregory, Patrick Hannon, Michael D. Higgins, Andy Irvine, John de Courcy Ireland, Justin Kilcullen, Piaras MacEinri, George Monbiot, Christy Moore, David Norris, Caoimhin O'Caoghláin, Gearóid O'Cleirigh, Sinead O'Connor, Fintan O'Toole, Pat Rabbitte, Mary Robinson, Camille Souter, Mary Van Lieshout, and numberless Fair City soap stars.
In Ireland the lotus-eating will no doubt continue untroubled.
Meanwhile in Iraq, the torture chambers of Saddam and his murdering mafia are opened to daylight and the streets of Baghdad have been filled with people cheering the arrival of their American liberators. - Yours, etc.,
PHILIP DONNELLY, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
Madam, - Great credit is due to your Lara Marlowe for her courage and dedication in covering the situation in Baghdad, despite the rigours of a noonday heat in the high nineties Fahrenheit, as well as the rioting, looting and the danger from "friendly fire". Her reports are much to be preferred to the old official communiques.
I can remember my grandfather reading from "de paper" (i.e. The Cork Examiner) to his cronies over 60 years ago the news to the effect that "the Italians have taken Cascara and are now evacuating all along the line". - Yours, etc.,
FRANK MURPHY, Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Madam, - After the events in Baghdad in recent days, has the security of the US been enhanced? If not, what next? - Yours, etc.,
ADRIAN CARROLL, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, April 11th) asks if those of us who marched against the war will now admit that we were wrong and apologise. I am willing to apologise if and when I am proven wrong. That will be when the US and Britain produce hard evidence that Saddam really did have weapons of mass destruction; when free and fair elections have been held in Iraq, a democratic government is in office and the rule of law established; and when the dead Iraqi civilians have been brought back to life.
If any of these three conditions proves onerous, two will do. - Yours, etc.,
CIARÁN MAC LOCHLAINN, Dunmore, Co Galway.
Madam, - It's worth remembering that it was not one of the Allies' stated war aims in the second World War to put a stop to the Holocaust, even after early reports of this began surfacing; yet many people now rightly think of this as one of the best reasons for fighting that war. Those who persist in their opposition to the invasion of Iraq should reflect on this when they claim that the war "lacked proper justification".
My point is not that Saddam's torture chambers are comparable to Auschwitz. It is this: either the numbers don't matter - because every innocent life should be protected - and we should have (literally) fought for justice in this case as much as in that one; or the numbers do matter, in which case we should compare the war casualties with the torture victims saved.
It is now clear that there were enough of the latter in Iraq to justify even a much longer war. - Yours, etc.,
GORDON DAVIS, Derg Marina Village, Ballina/Killaloe, Co Tipperary.