US contempt for human rights

WELL done. The Irish Examiner has the courage to highlight (July 15) America’s human rights record and the craven facilitation of rendition by our Government.

We should not let our cultural links blind us to America’s contempt for human rights, justice and the rule of law.

As the world’s only superpower it can do whatever it wants with impunity, knowing other governments will kowtow to it and the sycophantic media will relay its lies and propaganda.

Terrorism derives from injustice. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other American atrocities, have been very effective in recruiting insurgents, terrorists, Taliban, or whatever we choose to call them.

The US only has itself to blame for the attack on the World Trade Centre.

People do not undertake suicide attacks for fun, as Bush and his allies would have us believe.

Every time we suffer from security mania at airports or from draconian legislation — as in Britain — we should remember it is the fault of the USA in provoking an inevitable reaction.

Soldiers fighting for money in countries they have previously never heard of are no match for those with fanatical principles fighting to defend their homeland, their families, their countrymen and their way of life. Like the attempts by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice to destroy the broom, the US is simply creating more willing martyrs.

The use of vastly superior armaments to massacre whole villages only makes matters worse.

The US has, or had, plans to invade several more oil states, including Saudi Arabia and Iran.

With diminishing oil production and increasing demand worldwide, the alliance between China, Russia and possibly other countries in the east brings the likelihood of World War III being fought openly between protagonists rather than by proxy closer to becoming a reality.

The so-called war on terror does more to generate terrorism than to reduce it. The illegal imprisonment and torture of peasants and ordinary soldiers from Afghanistan over a period of years serves no useful purpose and cannot produce useful anti-terrorist intelligence.

Its only purpose is to instil fear and terror throughout the world and prevent dissent. America and its allies can therefore be defined as terrorist states.

Michael Job

Rossnagreana

Glengarriff

Co Cork