"Jim, none of that would give any legitimacy to a war of regime change."
Richard, there has been a war of regime change since 1922, we've not long come out of one of its bloodiest periods and they are still in the process of picking up the pieces.
The chance of settling the situation relatively peacefully was baton-charged out of existance in the late sixties with the short-lived Civil Rights Movement.
We still have the threat of a return to the bombings (three this month) and we still have the viciousness of the annual Unionist 'I'm The King of the Castle' displays which plunge the state into open violence around this time of the year.
The Northern Counties are still unstable enough as to be thrown into disarray by a senior minister's wife jumping into the wrong bed - it only managed to lose him his Parliamentary seat, but it might well have been a major spanner in the works of the Peace Process.
My point has been all along that until the public displays of superiority are stopped and until the border question is settled to the satisfaction of all parties, the violence and the threat of violence will remain and our children's children will still be burying the results long after we've gone.
"....have absolutely no mandate whatsoever from any Irish man or woman."
I wonder what sort of a mandate is held by the those who terrorised schoolchildren as young as 4 for being the 'wrong' religion and taking the wrong road to school. This type of savagery does as much to keep alive the hatred and violence and will contribute as much to any future slaughter as anything done by the other side - sorry, not a great deal of occupied high moral ground here.
"to move the gaolposts"!
Thanks Mike - nice to know you're there when I need you.
Jim Carroll