No US president can lecture us on rights

I AM dumfounded and disgusted to read in your newspaper (March 23) that UCC President Dr Michael Murphy has the audacity to invite US President Barack Obama to open a “human rights” lecture series in Cork.

Barack Obama has reneged on the closure of Guantanamo Bay, among many other election promises. The human rights record of the US from the genocide of its own native people to the present day incarceration of ethnic minorities is shameful.

Indeed, the US demonstrates a history of an expansionist, aggressive, imperial regime from its inception, with the sole goal of its own self-interest and domination.

It has a long documented history of invasion, practises torture, has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent lives (collateral damage) and has left a legacy of destruction all around the world.

The students and citizens of Cork have no need to be lectured by any past or present president of the United States — least of all Barack Obama.

Dave Reilly

Kinsale

Co Cork