A chara ard mhacha:
I find it somewhat strange that the US drops a cluster bomb on an Iraqui market place and braggs about busting Barbie out of a hospital as if this was the great struggle for humanity that WWII was... and then folks get their nose out of joint over remembering an almost nonviolent break out from the most secure prison on earth.AND... Kev... I always thought the GREAT! movie should be the Joe Doherty break out, which has moments of high comidy, such as when the car would not start in front of Crumlin Road Jail, and Joe took off on foot, wearing a guards uniform... persued by plain clothes cops, through a loyalist neighborhood, and loyalists threw bricks at the cops thinking that they were the RA and that Joe was a real prison guard... But, every so often on mudcat, we have to do a reality check, folks who only know the story through the news or from the point of view of their uniforms must talk together, and we should try and not get sarcastic and angery with each other. After all, in every war the truth is the first and the most common casualty, so both sides need to go through the truth and reconciliation process. Fact is, that the Republican side also has to think about how Britain and the US fooled Republicans into fighting a war against the interest of the Irish people. To those on the ground and at the time, it seemed like the only way to stop torture and bring democracy to a police state under military rule, however, just like the US reacting the way Ben Laudin wishing, and ending American liberty and showing its self as a violent bully, or Ben Laudin acting as the US wanted, giving the US the excuse to end American civil liberties and act like a violent bully, etc. etc. etc. in a never ending cycle of revenge... we need to think of ways to break the script we have been following for generations. I am not pointing an acusitory finger at Republican violence out of context, or saying that both sides were wrong, England and NATO where with out a doupt a colonialist power bringing war to Ireland, but Irish people took the bait. Yes, I have been there, lost friends, and I know that it is easy to say the bait should not have been taken, however, in looking back, in the last line of the great song about Joe MacDonald, what's been won?
Slan, Larry