GUEST 6:35 PM: Cromwell was hardly a nice person, and his methods of making war would make Osama cringe, but they were pretty normal for his era. The fact is that he spent less than ten months in Ireland and the task assigned him by the House of Commons was to defeat the Royalist forces there, who were Anglo-Irish landowners or English (both Protestant and Catholic). He was not there to persecute the "native" Irish, and generally didn't go out of his way to do so; he treated his enemies in Ireland just about the same as he did those in England.