Nato was founded in 1949 to counter the perceived threat posed by the then Soviet Union. It has no raison d’etre since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991. Assurances were also made to Gorbachev at that time that Nato would not enlarge.
In that light, the war in Ukraine was not unprovoked; Nato has expanded in the meantime by adding 16 countries right up to Russia’s borders, and is now seeking to expand into the southern Caucasus also, thereby posing what Russia considers a fundamental threat to its security. Indeed the ongoing Nato summit has committed itself to “bring Ukraine closer to the Alliance”. Nato is guided by a militarized response to threat.
On the other hand, Russia has made several overtures for peace, which have not been adequately responded to. Why can we not have a peace summit in Ireland? Why are our leaders not intervening with offers of hosting peace talks? We have a constitutional obligation to do so.
Nato has little to do with peace and everything to do with supporting the international arms industry. It is dragging us into the shadow of a nuclear apocalypse.
Elizabeth Cullen, Kilcullen, Co Kildare
Climate crisis is just as intrusive
I was disappointed to see that An Bord Pleanála upheld the decision to refuse planning permission and order the removal of the bike and wheelie bin storage shed in Ballintemple, Cork City. The decision read like very subjective word salad and reflects very outdated thinking in a climate crisis.
We cannot design, adapt and build the city that we need to be climate resilient using old rules and interpretations. Having seen the image of the shed reported, it does not look visually intrusive. There are far more visually intrusive things appearing in city driveways such as the ever-growing giant SUV’s and motor homes. Extreme heat, weather events and flooding will also be visually intrusive.
The Irish Examiner’s reporting on the issue rightly pointed out that Cork is one of 100 EU net zero cities by 2030. As the rules change slowly or not at all, we need people in positions of power to interpret planning applications through the lens of climate action and mitigation, and reward those who want to make positive changes in their personal lives instead of punishing them.
Aoife Long, Wilton, Cork
Unenforceable bill
The Occupied Territories Bill remaining unpassed is not due to lack of will on the part of the Government.
Successive government leaders have repeatedly told the Dáil that the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 would not be compatible with European Union law and would not be implementable.
Why Fintan Lane (Letters, Jul 12) and others continue to bang the drum for legislation that would be unenforceable, and therefore make Ireland look ridiculous, is beyond me.
Teresa Trainor, Dublin 16
Age brings wisdom
The attack on US president Joe Biden is ageism. It’s very negative and an insult to all senior citizens.
Age brings knowledge, priceless experience, ability, stability, safety, humanity, responsibility, patience, and safety.
What does Mary Robinson and The Elders, think and view this lack of respect, tolerance, and consideration, of all the attributes, gained from age and experience?
While Joe Biden would and is a stable leader and president, and would continue to be a safe hands for America, with all the negativity that has and is being dished out continuously, there may be a risk that some young, and not so young, might be reluctant to vote Democrat. So it might be wise, to select an experienced, responsible like Anthony Blinken.
Hopefully gradually people of all ages, will learn, and acknowledge the attributes, ability, stability, responsibleability gained from age.
Age is a positive attribute. The school of life, is the best school, of all.
Margaret Walshe, Consilla Rd, Dublin
Health funding woe
Many vulnerable people are falling through the cracks of our mental health services and the Government is doing nothing about it. Services are underfunded and staff overworked due to major shortages and it will only get worse, I have a relative with mental health issues and I have tried to make complaints about how I feel he could be unsafe.
Now you can only make a complaint to a HSE complaints person not the mental health service itself? I would like to ask the Government where is all the community services and everyone working together to make our mental health service better as they promised us in A Vision For Change, all I see is new buildings and no staff to put in them.
Mary Catherine Ryan, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Abortions for any who need them
Sinéad Boland (Letters, Thursday 11) is labouring under the misapprehension that abortion rights activists said abortion either should or would be ‘rare’ in Ireland.
The only people who said abortion should be ‘rare’ were conservative politicians who, having previously espoused anti-abortion views, saw the landslide for repeal coming and hopped on the bandwagon at the last minute.
The activists who actually carried the campaign want abortion to be freely available to whoever needs it, for whatever reason — ‘free, safe, legal’ was our mantra. That does not include a quota or an upper level beyond which abortion becomes wrong. After all, we don’t judge any other type of healthcare on the number of people accessing it.
Does Ms Boland think, for example, that there should be a limit on the amount of dentistry performed every year?
Ms Boland is right about one thing, though.
The abortion ‘issue’ is not done and dusted. The patronising three-day wait, which discriminates against poor, isolated, and vulnerable women, must go, as must the 12-week cut-off which still sends people abroad for abortion, as must the criminalisation which prevents medics from helping parents who receive a tragic diagnosis of fatal fetal anomaly.
Many people are still left behind by Ireland’s halfway-house abortion laws, and Taoiseach Simon Harris, who made a great show of his support for the Together for Yes campaign and spoke very eloquently during media debates, should remember the commitments he made at that time.
Lucy Boland, Rebels for Choice, Dunmanway, Co Cork
Loss through a different lens
There was a TV series years ago, based on events in Bosnia and the experiences of the UN peace keeping force which highlighted the contrast between real suffering and what often passes for it.
The scene would be familiar to those in the military I think; a soldier having completed his tour of duty returned to civilian life and was pushing a shopping cart around a supermarket in a daze as he tried to adjust to this new reality.
In one isle was a mother and child; the latter was having a tantrum and holding the mother to ransom over a toy she ‘needed’.
The soldier found the scene quite unbearable, sickening to watch, as he told them how trivial this was by recalling a recent memory and said “I have seen people who were on fire”.
Of course the natural selfishness and sense of entitlement often displayed by children is usually eliminated eventually by good parenting and the onset of gratitude for being so fortunate.
Many years later a news story caught my attention.
At the very beginning of the Islamic State invasion of Iraq, a town was invaded and all the Christian families were evicted at gunpoint with just the clothes on their backs.
One patriarch was interviewed on the news as he sat with his entire family, wife, children, grandchildren and other relatives in a tent in a makeshift refugee camp. He was crying as he lamented his losses, his farm, vehicles, cash, crops and livestock and he exclaimed “we used to live like kings, now look at us”.
Two weeks later, as Islamic State got a taste for their work, the narrative changed from evictions of Christian families to martyrdoms.
There was a big change of perspective for the early survivors, as they realised that they still had each other and the opportunity of starting again.
Acceptance and gratitude to God for what we have in the moment will help us to guard our hearts, retain our composure and have peace despite setbacks.
Stephen Clark, Manila, Philipines
