In the Irish Independent, Conor Cruise O'Brien notes Sinn Fein's obvious and long-standing hatred of America, and attributes much of the lunacy of the Dublin anti-invasion marchers to the influence of Sinn Fein.

Cruise O'Brien hates SF and would write (or concoct) ANYTHING to make them look bad. As a matter of fact, he doesn't like revolutionaries of any stripe - check out his comments about Thomas Jefferson.

That's right enough, Terry; CCOB hates the shinners. So - do you have a point? He doesn't need to concoct anything. Everything SF say and do is sufficient to show them for what they are.

The Cruise O'Brien piece, sadly, was a lot of wishful thinking. (He thinks that, after an Iraq war, Bush will pressure Blair to crack down on SF/IRA.) If Bush were serious about shutting down 'terrorists of global reach', the board of Noraid would be in cages in Guantanamo. Bush only wants to shut down terrorists who directly threaten US interests. Fair enough - looking after US interests is his job, nothing else is. Cruise O'Brien may wish all he likes but George Bush is not going to put an end to SF/IRA, nice as that might be.

I agree that Bush won't pressure Blair to crack down on SF/IRA, not that it would make a difference. The problem with dealing with SF is not that the British are "soft" on them but that, thanks to the "willing gravediggers" (with apologies to Milan Kundera) of the SDLP, SF have become the largest "Nationalist/Catholic" party so they cannot be sidelined.

However SF's mask is beginning to drop in the land of the $100 a plate fundraising dinners: USA. Thanks to SF's public anti-war and actual (i.e. not just implied) anti-american stance and the trial in Colombia, American's are getting to see a little more about what SF really says behind America's back

by agreeing with british media and political attempts to put the IRA as a 'mainstream accepted' 'terrorist' group is to really confuse the issue.

If you know about Ireland then you should really know about the formation of the IRA and their raison d'etre. The 9/11 attacks were the best thing taht could happen to bush and a lot of the right wing idiots that pervade this site. It gave excuses to use the rhetoric theyd always wanted to use bu had not got sufficient oxygen of any sort to blow with.......

now you think that by ridding the world off anything that is anti-world order (i.e. briatin and america)then the world will be a better place.
Well heres some news, if it want for britains involvement in ireland then there would have been no need for the IRA in the first place. Of course you are more than willing to forget that and imply or explicitly say that they are just a bunch of hoods who, were it not for a political cause they would be raping and pillaging belfqst and selling their mercenary skills to other groups (of course this is conveniently brought up in colombia, but what about british soldiers selling their 'skills' to protestant terrorists in ireland? Thats ok i suppose because theyre from the established and respected british army eh! rules of war do not apply to irish 'armies' i suppose. But ythen again you expect a group of opporessed people to have aircraft, proper artillery etc...so they can then fight the big boys on equal terms......
The Ira reacted to a situation...they did not create it...
prehaos al qaeda did too? No that would be a foolish statement.....

Maybe Irish americans have just ignored your definition of 'terrorists' knowing full well that the IRA are not terrorists but freedom fighters. 'terrorists' could well be applied tio the british army and their treatment of catholic in the 6 counties....but fleet street would not like it.....

Bush and blair are the new turner and murdoch willing to stunt out language, control our thoughts and tell us what is right and wrong, and of course its always the misunderstood and enemies that are wrong.....

AND to think that Cruise O brien would get support on here! SHock, horror!

C.

the IRA are terrorists, the only thing keeping it going is hate.

O'Brien is a blowhard, a master of the obvious and as writer less than compelling. The nature of revolution and rebellion are things that he talks around and implies that he understands but he never really addresses the psychology behind them. At least not in his articles. With out understanding these issues it is very difficult to understand the revolutionary and "terrorist" mindset and it is even more difficult to do anything about it, as George Bush is discovering right now.

Well, the only IRA I accept as "freedom fighters" are the PIRA. The Real IRA and CIRA are just thugs and terrorist who don't what the hell they're doing. Second, the 'War on Terror' is just a little scheme they cooked up to go to war in Iraq. They're never gonna go to Ireland. Bush would no way in hell pressure Blair. It would be opposite acutally, Blair would pressure Bush.