This week’s letters debate starts with the United States’ reaction to the oil spill, gun laws, overgrown verges, and the Saville report.
Where is US outrage over uranium victims?
Sir,-Give America the opportunity to bully or exact retribution and it will take it.
Long-term mutual interest, balance and proportionality seem to be alien concepts to the hectoring right wing there.
Take the astonishing, war-like rhetoric being launched at BP. Yes, the company is culpable and must cover the cost of this appalling disaster. But the US is a nation that has built its fortune on oil and knows the risks associated with deep-water exploration.
US politicians have focused their fire on BP while failing to castigate Transocean, the American-founded firm that operated the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on which 11 workers died when it exploded in April.
Nor have they questioned the role of Halliburton, who performed services on the rig. We heard little from US politicians when Occidental’s Piper Alpha platform exploded with the loss of 167 lives.
We have heard little outcry from US politicians over birth defects in Iraq and health problems in troops attributed to their use of depleted uranium weapons during the 2003 invasion.
Was there any military need for US and UK forces to pound Iraq’s cities with depleted uranium? Or was that just a convenient way to dispose of nuclear waste? The consequences for Iraq’s children are truly horrific.
When will objective self-examination begin in America? Or are US politicians indulging in self-righteous preaching only because they can? Surely that is the mark of a bully?
Robert Anderson.Kirkton,Arbroath.
Firearms can cut crime rate
Sir,-With reference to the grandmother jailed for possessing a handgun, it is a pity that such a great country with a history of protecting individual freedoms should willingly choose to surrender those same freedoms.
The ridiculous gun control laws (not to mention the absurd laws restricting knives) in the UK do nothing to protect society but rather deprive people of their right to protect themselves.
Twenty years ago, the US almost went down that same road but we have since reversed course.
More and more people in this country are not only embracing firearms ownership but are getting licensed to carry handguns.
The violent crime rate here is going down. It is pity to see what has become of your country.James J. Makowski.17659 Poplar Street,Riverview,Michigan.
Citizens’ right to self defence
Sir,-Jailing a grandmother for possessing a handgun is pathetic.
The UK Government has no values, is liberal, has caused crime to escalate beyond belief and violates citizens’ God-given right to self-defence.
It is hard to understand liberal anti-gunners. Your country will deteriorate more and more, more people will be robbed and killed, yet your government is blind and selfish, not agreeing to allow self-defence.
And terrorist Muslims are taking over your country.
Am I glad I am an American.Robert Boyles.Prattville,Alabama.
Motorists put at risk
Sir,-Councillor Maggie Taylor is missing the point in her airy-fairy smell the flowers and look at the bunnies response to Mr Davies’ letter highlighting overgrown verges and roundabouts in Fife.
Apart from the fact that it must look so untidy and uninviting to visitors and locals, in the case of the now fairly wildly overgrown roundabout at the end of the Tay Road Bridge, it is becoming a hazard to motorists as it is shielding some of the traffic exiting the bridge to head along the dual carriageway.
Travelling into Fife, I have witnessed a few stop-start scenarios as cars have moved forward then braked suddenly as a couple of cars from the right-hand lane on the bridge have suddenly materialised from behind a bit of overgrown hedge.
It doesn’t matter whose responsibility it is: if it is not the council’s, it is still at least the duty of councillors to ensure that those who are responsible attend to it as soon as possible.
With regard to the health and safety aspect of ‘mowing sloping lawns’, what can you say?
I feel it is just another step along the road that already carries the ongoing, almost continual, silly nanny-state interference and political correctness that seems to pervade every aspect of life these days.
It was always safely managed before this ruling was brought in, as far as I’m aware, or does the councillor have statistics to show otherwise?
Is there no money at all for safety or protective equipment?
And as for enjoying ‘looking at the wild flowers and watching the butterflies, bees and the rabbits’, I hope, if the councillor is in a car when she is doing this, that she is a passenger and not the driver.Iain Mitchell.Hawkhill,Dundee.
Saville report cash wasted
Sir,-Lord Saville produced a report to suit the establishment.
What does the reputation of a few soldiers matter?
The report stated that IRA men were in place to snipe at the army and did fire shots early in the violence but did nothing that gave soldiers justification for shooting.
Lord Saville believed that none of the IRA used their weapons before the soldiers started shooting. This assumes that the IRA were telling the truth and the soldiers were lying.
The £200 million spent on the inquiry could have been put to better use caring for those severely injured in IRA atrocities.William W. Scott.23 St Baldred’s Road,North Berwick.