Letter: I hope that the US president does not parrot Irish republicans on legacy

By Letters
Published 11th Apr 2023, 03:19 BST
Updated 11th Apr 2023, 11:08 BST
The twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York burn behind the Empire State Building on September 11, 2001. The US unleashed its War on Terror, but if the UK had used the same tactics, Dundalk would have been flattened (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler/FILE)The twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York burn behind the Empire State Building on September 11, 2001. The US unleashed its War on Terror, but if the UK had used the same tactics, Dundalk would have been flattened (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler/FILE)
The twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York burn behind the Empire State Building on September 11, 2001. The US unleashed its War on Terror, but if the UK had used the same tactics, Dundalk would have been flattened (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler/FILE)
A letter from Tom Nash:

An Open Letter to President Biden:

Dear Mr President, I fear that during your visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday you will make comments on the Troubles and its legacy, perhaps parroting the PSF/PIRA version and damning the UK – as you have scolded Britain before on matters pertaining to NI, such as the protocol, and as members of your party have scolded the UK on its handling of the legacy of the Troubles. May I gently remind you that over the weekend of February 6 1968, following the murder of Martin Luther King, Mayor Richard J Daley, like yourself a staunch Irish American Catholic politician in the Democratic Party, issued a ‘Shoot to Kill – Shoot to Maim’ order to his Chicago Police. At least eight young black protestors were gunned down.

On the night of February 25 1969 a US Navy Seal Team, led by one Lt Bob Kerrey, massacred at least 24 innocent Vietnamese civilians in the Thanh Phong Hamlet. This was but the tip of the murders carried out by US Forces in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of its Phoenix Programme which turned many areas into ‘free fire zones’ where shoot to kill was normal. Lt Kerrey went on to become a US senator, State governor and Democratic presidential candidate. He is well known to you of course.

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I draw your attention to the fact that the casualties from the Omagh bomb here in 1998 were almost twice those of 9/11 proportionate to population size. The Omagh bomb killed 20 innocents per million people and 9/11 killed 11 innocents per million. Lots of other PSF/PIRA massacres were not far behind this in population terms. Following 9/11 the US unleashed its War on Terror, resulting in whole countries being destabilised, cities reduced to rubble and literally countless numbers of innocents killed in Africa and the Middle East by US retaliatory action. Mr president if the UK had behaved like US forces in Vietnam or used the same tactics your country did following 9/11, Dundalk would have been flattened and the Irish Republic militarily punished for allowing PSF/PIRA to use it as terror base! We didn’t do this and that is the essential difference between us. Perhaps ‘He who is without Sin’ is something that you may ponder on.

Tom Nash, Derriaghy

Related topics:Northern Ireland