Dear Editor,

I refer to Joey Jagan's letter [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] of 15.9.01 on events in the US.

It's one thing for a thoroughly Americanized Dr Joey Jagan to want to give his unconditional support to the US, but quite another to drag tiny, insignificant Guyana into the morass.

Did he approve of the application of the Monroe Doctrine by the US when they orchestrated the removal of the PPP from office and facilitated the installation of Burnham in the 1960's, with the resulting loss of life and mass exodus?

In referring to Washington and Lincoln, Dr Jagan makes liberal use of the word "terrorist" and draws a distinction in the way people are killed be it by "terroristic" or other means. In my view when you're dead, you're dead. Does it matter to one by what means?

Does he consider the `nuking' of not one but two populous Japanese cities to be by "terroristic" or by other means? Is the drugs for Contra arms scheme in order to destroy the democratically elected government of Nicaragua outright "terrorism"? Did he give his tacit approval to the US sponsored assassination of Salvador Allende by none other than the `brutal dictator' Pinochet? Maybe he considered the constant shelling and subsequent loss of life in southern Lebanon by the USS Missouri `gunboat diplomacy' instead.

Samuel A.Berger, National Security Advisor to the Clinton administration lied to the world when he proclaimed that "VX nerve gas, the penultimate chemical weapon" was being produced in the Sudan. Subsequently, the US unleashed 13 cruise missiles on a legitimate pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, with the subsequent loss of life. We watched with horror the daily US TV broadcasts of the US military briefings to the gathered journalists on the damage wrought by the so?called smart bombs and missiles on innocent old men, women and children in Iraq. Perhaps Dr Jagan would acquiesce in the term `collateral damage' here. Maybe he considers the destruction of the Iranian commercial jet?liner in international airspace by the USS Vincennes as `antiseptic' and `surgical.' No, not terrorism.

I wonder whether he has a name for the economic sanctions placed on Cuba, Iraq and Pakistan, to name a few.

The US alleges that the Taleban government of Afghanistan "harbours terrorists." Isn't it ironic that the US supplied the very same Taleban with, reportedly, 6 billion US dollars worth of overt military aid to kill as many Russians as possible. I wonder how Dr Jagan reconciles that. Certainly, not terrorism.

I don't know who annointed the US as world policeman. I know what we have, instead, is a world bully. Is that the reason why so many countries are falling in line behind the US?