Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 20:10:50 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Paul Richards <paul@freebsd-services.com> Cc: Stephen Hurd <deuce@lordlegacy.org>, Technical Information <tech_info@threespace.com>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <3BAEA43A.DF42C7B@mindspring.com> References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAGEDNCEAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> <3BAC3644.1CB0C626@mindspring.com> <948140000.1001159802@lobster.originative.co.uk> <3BAD1D06.6E56344F@mindspring.com> <1220300000.1001212050@lobster.originative.co.uk> <3BAE42B0.C5B5AA4E@mindspring.com> <27760000.1001282869@lobster.originative.co.uk>
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Paul Richards wrote: > > Either the U.K. has sovereignty over Ireland, in which case > > the conflict is internal, or it doesn't, in which case, "the > > right side" is a matter of debate. > > It's clear from that statement that you don't actually know anything about > the Irish situation. Would that be because of my Protestant father, or my Catholic mother? All I see is a bunch of idiots killing each other in the name of God as a result of a religious difference that arose from a King wanting a divorce and a Pope denying it, in a petty attempt to demonstrate that each had more temporal power than the other, when both decried the value of temporal power. So call it "Northern Ireland" instead of "Ireland". Hmmm... I guess you could argue that bin Laden is also killing people in the name of God, so in that light you could argue a similarity to the situations. > However, the telling comment above is that '"the right side" is > a matter of debate'. So there are good and bad terrorists then? No. Just that there is room for debate. That doesn't mean room for terrorism. > You're justifying the US' support for the IRA because there's a > possibility they were on the right side? No, I'm saying that there is no U.S. support one way or the other; the U.K. has also met with Sinn Fein, just as the U.S. government did. The U.S. doesn't technically have a position one way or the other, until Congress votes funds or passes a resolution pro one side or the other, and the President signs it. Clinton himself may favor one side or the other, but he was acting as an individual, just as U.S. citizens or citizens of other countries give money to support either side. U.S. citizens may have acted, but the U.S. government has not. We might as well hold nations responsible for the actions of individual citizens who act without that nations support, tacit or otherwise. If there were a hypothetical attack on the scale of the recent attack on the U.S., I expect that Ireland would cooperate with the apprehension of the suspects, since it's not in their political best interest. Realize that "the troubles" have being going on 31 years, and have resulted in a total of somewhat under 3,300 deaths. Not to diminish this, but the attack on New York doubled that in the space of an hour. > The IRA situation is not an internal British matter like the Oklahoma > bombing was. It is analogous to the WTC attack in that a terrorist group > has been launching attacks on the UK, killing innocent civilians, and where > that terrorist group was based in a foreign country. I looked carefully for a "best source" for you for this; so... according to Professor Neal Lineback of Appalachian State University: Open conflict is common in many developing countries, but it is inconceivable to many Americans that Catholics and Protestants can't make peace. I think the accurately expresses the general view of the IRA vs. the U.K. in the U.S.. A good overview from a historical and U.S. perspective is online at: http://www.maptrade.org/g9501.html Note that it is somewhat dated, being approximately 5 years old. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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