Well Larry, we are getting there slowly but surely, US bombers are now US aircraft. Going through air movement logs for Shannon will show that the US military flights refuelling at Shannon are troop transports mostly in chartered civilian aircraft, military transport aircraft C-130's, tanker aircraft KC-135's, Gulfstream COD aircraft and aircraft from USN's Logistics Wing. The cartoon might be one of your favourites, but please don't intimate that what it portrays is fact.

GUEST 03 Oct 03 - 07:15 AM:
The gun pointing thing is routine, I don't know if you have watched coverage of current US foot patrols in Baghdad, you most certainly will have seen members of the UK forces on foot patrol.

Standard practice is to carry the weapon across the body with the barrel pointed downwards, but at any given time a certain number of the members of the patrol will have their weapons raised and trained as they cover their arc of responsibility.

The difference between the UK and US patrols that I have seen on news coverage is that at no time do you ever see a member of a US patrol walking backwards, their visual coverage of the area being patrolled appears to be extremely haphazard. Within your own experience in the North of Ireland, while encountering security forces patrols may have been frightening, they were ten times less likely to kill you than any paramilitary organisation.

As to the state behaving badly in the matter of Ireland for countless years - please don't be so restrictive, historically, a number of states have behaved badly in the matter of Ireland for countless years. Those states promised much and delivered little, they aggitated and promoted unrest, knowing full well what the English and latterly the British response would be. Their dividend was that Britain would have to send troops to Ireland that would otherwise have been used against themselves - have you ever wondered why rebellions in both Scotland and in Ireland have coincided with European conflicts involving Britain, France and Spain.