Yeah, Wolfgang, you pretty much have the way of it. There are many theoretical answers, but the real answers lie in a complicated haypile. It takes a lot of patience, and sometimes backtracking, to sort them all out.

Mudcat, in the Northern Irish threads, has changed much of how I react to this stuff. My good friends from England have had much to do with this. My view as to the solution in the North haven't changed, but what I view as acceptable in the fight has. Which leads me to the point of this post.

We are supposedly at war with Terrorism. Note the capitalized "t". In order to prosecute this type of war, we must be able to accurately what "Terrorism" is. If we do the typical American thing of generallising, then anything that GW does is OK. For myself, that won't work. I have chosen to define Terrorism as a violent act, aimed at advancing ones political/religous views, carried out against unarmed civilians of any country. That distinction allows me to make my own judgements. When an armed group blows up a car bomb in a civilian area, and that weapon is designed to be indiscriminate or to target civilians, I am appalled and want to go after these folks and stop them using any means necessary. Before anyone asks, Yes, that means I am opposed to any bombings by Republicans/Nationalists that are aimed at civilians. That does not mean that I don't understand the concept of collateral deaths. Those are a fact of struggle, and tragic, but unavoidable.

Having said that, I have no problem with hunting down and using the missile to get these folks. They took the first shot, and we waited until we had them in a place where there wouldn't be collateral deaths. Nicely done.

Mick