Countries do little to halt the suffering

FORMER US Marine Lt Col Bill Hurley listed some of the atrocities committed against US military and civilian personnel (Irish Examiner letters, June 13) .

He claimed ‘they’ (presumably the US) have been under attack since 1979. While I sympathise with all who have lost loved ones over that period, his list of 13 attacks spanning the past 27 years needs to be put in perspective.

Here are a few other facts that might help.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to four million people have perished since 1998 as a result of civil war; in Iraq, more than 100,000 civilians have died as a consequence of the 2002 US-led invasion. In Afghanistan 3,800 people were killed by US bombs in the last three months of 2002 alone; in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 200,000 and 400,000 people died between 1991-94 as a result of war between Serbs and non-Serbs.

There has been genocide in Rwanda, Sudan and other countries. Famines created by political intransigence and environmental destruction have devastated much of Africa. And there were 2.8 million deaths from AIDS in 2005 alone.

Countries like Ireland, which have a proud history of peacekeeping and neutrality, should be concerned about how little they do to stop the ongoing cycles of war, human rights violations and suffering throughout the world.

Instead of supporting the interests of aggressive colonisers of the past and present, we should be taking a stand in support of the norms and values of international law. We should insist on the highest human rights standards from all states, starting with ourselves.

Millions of Congolese, Afghan, Iraqi, Bosnian, Rwandan, Sudanese and other lives have been lost as tragically as the those in New York on 9/11.

We should not forget that. Those responsible for each and every one of those deaths were wrong, even if we did not call them terrorists.

John Lannon

Raheen

Ballyneety

Co Limerick