emeraldrafael said:
RevRaptor said:
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You never heard British citizens bitching about IRA attacks years later. They just dealt with it and moved on. What is it about Americans that makes you such whiny cry babies?
I heard a few when I was over there and mentioned it, and got thrown out of a few places for mentioning it. i actually if I think about it, i think one of the drunker bitchers about it gave me a death threat over it. Of course I got dirty looks for never understanding why Britain couldnt just give up a track of land like that since they didnt want to be part of it, but i guess Brits never seemed to think that a country should leave them once they forcibly take over unless it gets a view on the world stage.
besides, if I remember correctly, there was some kinda controsversy over it in britain when deadliest warrior decided to do an episode with them and they didnt even air the show on tv.
Sounds to me like QUITE a few people arent over it yet.
OK, firstly, it's TRACT of land, not TRACK of land. Secondly, there's really no major interest among most Brits in keeping Ulster in the UK- it's no longer strategically important and diverts quite a lot of tax money from the mainland. In addition, there's quite a lot of sympathy for the people whose lives have been destroyed by the troubles.
The reason we can't just give it back to the RoI is that there are still a load of people there who consider themselves British and some of them are as happy to commit acts of violence as the IRA were. The peace talks were made much more difficult by Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley and his ilk. If Sinn Fein and the British govt. were the only people who had to get together round a table it could have been sorted out in months, not years.
The ignorant black and white view of many Americans to a much more nuanced problem (and the funding of the IRA - a terrorist organisation) didn't win a lot of friends this side of the pond. Sort of similar to the treatment of Israel/Palestine- a large lobby in America decided to back one side and to hell with the others.
Please read some history books, the Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_troubles
or just listen to "Each Dollar a Bullet" by Stiff Little Fingers for further clarification.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FRC1BpofCg
On the matter of September the 11th 2001, I cannot presume to speak for all my countrymen. My initial reaction as I watched the 2nd plane hit live on the news was shock and horror. I have visited New York twice since the attack, including ground zero and I am simultaneously impressed by the resilience of the people there and struck by the enormity of the event. It is one of my favourite cities and one of very few for which I would leave the UK. I mention New York specifically because the other two targets were government buildings.
My overwhelming feeling is of sympathy for the American people, particularly those who lost loved ones. Second to that is a sick feeling at the way the event was exploited for political capital by the Bush administration. Under all that, there is a glimmer of hope that at least now the idea of "justifiable terror" is so dead in the US that people with an Irish great great grandparent will stop sending money and guns to Northern Ireland.
Attacking civilians for political reasons is never right, no matter how noble your cause.