Basically it boils down to this - You either have government and rule of law or you don't. There is no half-way house where you pay lip-service to rule of law but keep a private army in the wardrobe to take out and threaten the population with every time decisions are made that you don't agree with.

The day of the paramilitaries is over in Northern Ireland and everybody must get behind that and let them, and those who would join them, know that. Condemnation of the recent acts from the President of the United States and senior figures in his administration would help, so far there has been silence that can only encourage the dissidents.

The penalties for failure are severe in the extreme, lots of references have been made to a return of the "bad old days", only a few realise that there wouldn't be any return to the "bad old days", were the Irish Peace Process to fail the days to come would be far, far worse than anything that you have ever seen at any time in the past.