What's going on in Chad?

John Neliga writes into today's Irish Times to answer Jack Downey's (June 10th) question. His answer is that unless Ireland turns into a brutal dictatorship which sponsors global terrorism, invade our neighbours and commit genocide against our own people, we will not need protection from the US.

But in his haste the gets the answer a tad wrong. If Ireland was to turn into a brutal dictatorship and commit genocide against our own people there is no reason to believe we would suffer the rath of US foreign policy, the support for Saddam during his worst crimes is testament to this. No doubt we would be unpopular if we decided to invade our close neighbours, as the UK is of course a close friend of the US, but so was Kuwait.

But the most obvious hypothetical Mr. Neliga neglects is, and this is the one that is bound to require us some protection, if Ireland turns into one of the world's most oil rich countries in one of the world's most oil rich regions.

Anyone know what's going on in Chad?

[sent to the IT]

Jack's question: "For decades, we looked on the US as our protector against the Soviet Union. Today, who will protect us from the United States?"