[Winniesboy]

You’re fighting the good fight, but I think it may be pointless. There are thousands of “Irish Americans” in this country who will make excuses for the IRA until they are blue in the face. They probably think those 2 British soldiers shot last year as they were picking up their pizza were fair game. They’d still happily contribute to NORAID or any similiar cause when the hat is passed.

I really miss Irish_Thatcherite. But now I understand why he left this site. The moral relativism when it comes to this subject is disheartening.

Yes, it is depressing to see here a recurrence of these old, half-informed, polarised stereotypes. I'd really hoped that attitudes on the subject in the US had matured just as they have, to a very large extent, in Northern Ireland itself. Apparently not, if what you say is true. What we have to remember is that we now have a working, workable (albeit undoubtedly flawed) system of government in Northern Ireland which has been endorsed by the electoral mandate of the whole island (the Republic and the North). It's an interim stage, undoubtedly, to something more permanent: but it does mean that those who were once apparently irreconcilable enemies are now working together, talking to each other, and at last recognising that they have more in common than they had ever suspected. In that context the events of the last few days are not that significant.

[elc]

In that context the events of the last few days are not that significant.

I agree with that. While it's horrible to see, it's not surprising and won't really have any long term effects on the peace. This happens every year. Can't remember if it was this article or another I read that stated these were the worst clashes since this time last year. And nothing fell apart between July 12th last year and this year.

This is a bunch of un/under employed young thugs with nothing better to do with their time.