Giok, with respect for our friendship, that is a load. That is easy to say when you have one of the largest, most well equipped armies in the world. Tell that to the Viet Cong, to the Sunni insurgents, indeed to the Colonial Army of the United States. I could go on and on. How about the Free French? I won't get into details because I didn't live in those streets. But to continue to defend the British Army and its activities in the North of Ireland smacks of denial. I don't suggest for a moment that the great majority of these soldiers were just young men trying to do their job in very difficult circumstances. Those that know about me know that I understand that very well. I don't deny that families had to face the horrible reality of losing a loved one in war. But to continue to deny the legitimate aspirations of a people to not live in a bigotted society, gerrymandered worse than any in history against political aspirations, with a set of laws that the creators of the Apartheid policy of South Africa borrowed but not in quite so restrictive a form, to deny that the British Army aided and abetted a terror and torture campaign, and even today tries to cover it up, is just ludicrous. Den will never convince me that he didn't start this with an agenda, but can you blame him? You didn't like the tactics of the IRA, how about the tactics of the groups that spawned their tactics? Do you think they did that just because? They did it because they were at a numerical disadvantage, they had centuries of history to understand that their oppressor wouldn't just go, and they were undergunned. I have heard many speak of the unwinability of the Iraq war, because the war is wrong, based on wrong principles. You are all ready to sack Blair because of it. What is so different between that and the struggle of the Irish to send your troops back across the water and let them be? A political solution is there, and thanks be that the players in Dublin and London have finally quit pandering to the beneficiaries of the gerrymandering and discrimination. But don't sit here and act as though these freedom fighters, with all their warts, were acting unreasonably against what they faced from the collusive efforts of their adversaries.

Mick