Might and morality: Dev’s dictum still holds

EAMON de Valera, in his famous response to Churchill after World War II put it succinctly: “This would mean that Britain’s necessity would become a moral code and, when this necessity became sufficiently great, other people’s rights did not count.

It would mean that no small nation could ever hope to be permitted to go its own way in peace.” Substitute a large, powerful nation, say USA, for England, and the dictum still applies.

Despite British and US ‘intelligence’ telling us that Iraq is a country the size of France, according to my reference books (the latest, 1995), France is 544,000 sq. km, Iraq 438,000 sq km (three-quarters the size)! Population of France 58m, population of Iraq 20m. (USA 9m. sq km, 258m population).

Do I have reason to doubt the belligerent states’ (UK and US) propaganda? Who said that the first casualty of war is truth? Yours in trepidation.

Cal Hyland,

The Square,

Rosscarbery,

Co Cork.