THE EDITOR, Sir:MR. PAUL Chong, writing in a letter to the editor appearing on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 suggests that the Jamaica Government is in the clarity of its stance against the unlawful U.S.-led invasion of Iraq "biting the hand that feeds it."
I am not in agreement with this view. The United States has repeatedly shown and stated that whatever action it takes whether military, social or political is motivated by one aim the economic improvement of the richest five per cent of its population. She has repeatedly bad-mouthed, intimidated and demonised any country that is not openly and unequivocally in support of its policies and stances as well as those who are.
Furthermore, if the United States gives, lends or invests one cent in any country as in Jamaica it is because it expects to get one million dollars on that one-cent investment, loan or "gift".
The United States is not giving anything for nothing and very little for a great deal. The fact that Jamaica has clearly denounced and condemned the illegal bully, bad-boy tactics and crime of the U.S. and Britain does not mean that Jamaicans are against the United States. Nor is the fact that we have done so unapologetically and unequivocally. Jamaicans from the days when the United States was a protectorate of the United Kingdom ruled from Jamaica, have been known to speak their minds against friends and foes alike.
Indeed we would not be true friends of the U.S. if we, seeing that they are wrong, were not to say so, and in the strongest language possible.
We are not being fed. We are not biting any hand. We are only talking the truth and telling our "friend" that she is wrong to have invaded a sister state without the backing of international law.
I am, etc.,
MALCOLM ROWE
Attorney-at-law
