Allan, I appreciate your informed, thoughtful input.
I hope you stay around.

That is the sort of guff Keith used to spout to me, until he discovered that I had no time for his unidimensional perspective.

Allan, I think my post made it clear that I was not throwing loyalist atrocities at Keith. I was responding to his argument that PIRA's campaign extended the trauma. I conceded that it probably did, but suggested he should also take into account government behaviour - internment and Bloody Sunday in particular - which plainly had a colossal impact on the course of the troubles. I referred to the Shankill butchers etc because the impression Keith creates, for all his protestations that he condemns violence from all sides, is that the atrocities came overwhelmingly from one side. The evidence you cited from Cain shows the reality.

My original point about the bombing campaign was that it caused relatively few casualties. Yes, there were fatalities and yes there were injuries, and you (Allan) have cited the figures. But they were the result of several thousand bombings. If all the bombings had been perpetrated Omagh-style, or like today's bombing in Moscow, the fatalities would have been at least 100,000 and probably more than 200,000.

Keith: I thought I had dealt directly with most of your points, but I do see one that I overlooked: Would you please say just when it was in the 1970s that the RUC employed "a significant number" of catholics? And for good measure, perhaps you would say what that number was, more or less? I ask because you are talking nonsense.

I have looked again at your response to my point about bombs and guns. The weasel words you've used to explain it away do you no credit. I have also looked again at your phrase "They started from a much worse position than you..." together with one that follows it, referring to "your violent gangs." It looks to me as though you were addressing me, or at least including me. But if, as you say, you were addressing the people of Northern Ireland (even though you had earlier told us that no-one from there is contributing here at Mudcat), is it not rather casual to assume that all the people of Northern Ireland were seeking the same outcomes? Please elaborate.