Letters to the Editor: 'How many must die before we say enough is enough?'

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: Presidential Press Service via AP

Letters to the Editor

We have heard from certain sections of society, both here and abroad, about the plight of Palestinian refugees walled into a strip of land by the Israeli government and its army.

We also have the annexation of land by Israel in the 1968 war which it now treats as its own but has been condemned by other democratic nations apart from the US.

Right now we have something similar happening to the Kurdish people and their army in northern Syria. Mr Erdogan wants to create a buffer zone inside Syria by annihilating any vestiges of Kurdish dominance. That President Trump is willing to withdraw American troops, who were there to assist Kurdish forces against the evil of Isil, and abandon them to their fate shows how cowardly Mr Trump is.

He has, time and time again, said one thing but in a short space of time relented and pulled back from commitments he made.

We are in a world dominated by autocrats in some of the biggest nations and where the masses are either too afraid, too browbeaten or too hungry to stand up against this ever-present evil and dominance.

Those brave Kurdish forces and those who fought with them against Isil should not be abandoned in their hour of need.

If our international treaties are worth the paper they’re written on any unlawful incursion, death and destruction by invading forces like those of Turkey and its leaders, must be challenged and the Kurds supported and defended.

The International Court of Justice was based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states and for the maintenance of international peace and security.

The court applies international law under the statute, in that it applies international customs and conventions and the rule of law recognised by other nations.

In this matter where one nation invades another nation on the pretext of ridding itself of so-called terrorists, the courts must step in and take action which the UN Security Council should act on.

Bur sadly even if the court was to make a decision, that decision can be vetoed by one of the main permanent members who sit on the Security Council.

How many people must die or be made homeless through war before we as a people stand up and fight back, not with bombs or bullets, but the sheer force of mass, intellect and diplomacy?

Christy Galligan

Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Corbyn lacks the courage to fight Johnson in an election

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob (Letters, Irish Independent, October 14) overlooks one important point. Boris Johnson was overwhelmingly elected Tory leader and thus prime minister, albeit by Tory Party members only, to deliver Brexit by Halloween as freely voted for by a majority of 1,269,501 in 2016.

As for certain families not knowing where they stand post-Brexit, east European arrivals since 2004 could always choose to return to their recent countries of origin which they left to become economic migrants in the UK, courtesy of Tony Blair’s (Blair the co-author of the illegal 2003 Iraq War) open borders policy. Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland’s economies could well benefit from this.

The Good Friday Agreement and the UK, post-Brexit, give Scotland the valid opportunity for a second independence referendum (preferably a republic) and the peoples of Ireland to become reunited.

As for Gibraltar, its inhabitants wish (and voted) to remain British – presumably English – if the UK breaks up into several independent countries. Spain cannot complain when it denies Catalonia a free independence referendum and holds two Moroccan cities – Ceuta and Melilla – as ‘Spanish territory’. Boris Johnson was elected to do precisely what he is doing and Jeremy Corbyn cowardly ducked a general election, where all those who oppose Brexit could put the Tories out, thus cancelling Brexit. I, for one, have no objection to another EU referendum – voting out again. I like my Labour Kensington MP precisely because she’s a republican and despite me being a Tory who wanted Johnson to become leader.

Let Jeremy Corbyn ‘man up’ and agree to a general election before Christmas.

Dominic Shelmerdine

London, UK

Sign of the times from when life seemed so much sweeter

Roslyn Dee’s reference (“I’m a widow because of tobacco – it’s time to get tough with evil industry”, Irish Independent, October 10) to “sweetie cigarettes” from bygone days, reminded me of a sign prominently displayed in the window of a sweet shop in Bray, during my boyhood years. ‘CHOCOLATE THROWOUTS’ it boldly announced, over a tray of scattered chocolates. Many the one I wolfed down with gay abandon, and lived to tell the tale. Thus far, anyway.

Tom Gilsenan

Beaumont, Dublin 9