To Paul from Hull:

What the American or Israeli armies would've done had they replaced the British in NI is conjecture at best. If you're implying they are the heavyweight human rights abuse in police actions champions, I'd say I can nominate some pretty stiff competition. And cover a lot wider political spectrum, too! For example:

1) the Russian Army.

Forget the world class abuse practiced by the Soviet Army, as they are now supposedly defunct. The current Russian army has a very thick AI file for their campaign in Chechnya and the other caucasian regions.

2) The Argentine and Chilean armies.

During their internal wars on dissent, these two machine gunned and threw out of helicopters a pretty impressive pile of victims. And the people responsible have been shielded from prosecution because the governments of those countries are too afraid to do otherwise.

3) The Syrian Army

The Alawite minority runs an army that destroyed a good sized city to defeat the Sunni Muslim rebels. And their record in Lebanon wasn't anything to crow about.

4) The Indonesian Army

Think East Timor, and Irian (New Guinea), and Sumatra, and Borneo,and the South Moluccas and a million Communists in Java..........aw I think you get it.

5) The Serbian Army. They controlled the paramilitaries in Bosnia, and their Kosovo operations were a pretty good exercise in terrorizing a population out of their homes. If they had run the NI operations, our friend Divis Sweeny would either be dead or living in Dublin. Some of the responsible persons were tried in International tribunals, but most are still safe in Serbia.

6) The Nigerian Army. I'd hate to be a country where this kleptomaniac army was providing "Peacekeeping". Not to mention the little affair in the former rebel province of Biafra.

7) the Turkish Army. Not terribly popular among most Cypriots. And the Kurdish people, even those who can't stand the PKK, hate these boys most of all.

If your tacky little dictatorship or budding democracy isn't on this list, I'm sorry but my fingers are getting tired. If I'm going to have peacekeeping troops in my country, can I please have the Irish Army? (The one with the tricolored orange, white and green flag.)

Joe