How many Irish nationalists do you know? The ones I know consider the IRA to be a bunch of thugs. Their attitude towards sympathizers in the US is similar to the attitude most Israelis have towards the kind of American wackos who killed Rabin. That's probably too nuanced for you, so to simplify:

Thanks, I`ll simplify all my answers into words of 2 syllables or less for you in future.

I think they're a bunch of thugs. They're just as thuggish towards "their own" as they are towards the Loyalists. Express a moderate or humanistic point of view in certain NI neighborhoods and the IRA thugs will make sure you're censored for good.

My point exactly, the IRA are criminal scum, as I have said. Of course they serve a purpose, but that really isn`t the point.

AS Bill Frantz pithed a few weeks ago: the problem is not anarchy -- the problem is too many competing governments in one place. Thuggery isn't the answer to historical thuggery.

Thuggery in this vein is certainly not appropriate. I would have no problem whatsoever with the IRA if they concentrated entirely on killing poloticians, recall that not so many years ago they were less inclined to killing civilians (around the Brighton bomb and Airey Neave incident time). Of course, the IRA have always been censorous thugs, they just happen to have taken also to killing innocent people in highly populated areas as well. IMO, the IRA are terrorists, *not* freedom fighters. Datacomms Technologies data security Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"