I share your distaste for M McG's terrorist past, but the world over there is nothing new about an ex terrorist becoming a politician.
To make the peace process in Ireland happen a whole load of unpalatable things have had to be done, but then this is what you must sometimes do in order to turn the page. The point is, like him or loathe him, mcGuinness, by agreeing to become part of the democratic process is one of the people who helped to move the peace process forward.
In this particular instance he has acted in a principled way by stepping down. It's really Arlene Foster who should have been the one resigning.
Would you be saying the same about those terrorists that killed those in paris, germany, turkey, etc. They are all of brainwashed dead mentality, with guns & bombs.
Not really a valid comparison. The kind of terrorists turned politicians I'm talking about, are ones whose terrorism was driven by a réalisable political objective, often to do with freedom from a colonial master. This new brand of al qaeda/isis inspired massacring of innocents seeks to destroy western culture and build a new caliphate, forcing people to convert or die. Not really any room for negotiation there.
In history, one mans terrorist has often been another man's freedom fighter. That most peaceful of men, Mahatma Gandhi, was declared a terrorist by parliament in 1932. Nelson Mandela was one, most of the top politicians in Israel have had a terrorist past. The nazis always referred to the French resistance as terrorists.
Now I'm not suggesting that Martin McGuinness is in the next Nelson Mandela, but the truth is that once we decided to negotiate in Ireland a peaceful solution was quite quickly found. This is not possible with the sort who are committing these recent atrocities.
