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.
I completely agree with you Giles (and Howard).
As a point of interest, I was at corporate jolly a number of years back, in which the main 'entertainment' was being put through our paces playing management games led by a bunch of ex-Falklands Special Forces guys from the Control Risks Group, followed by a lecture from their boss, General Sir Michael Rose.
It was as part of the lecture that he explained that the factor that brought the Provisional IRA to the negotiating table was when they were confronted with the information that demonstrated British Intelligence had thoroughly penetrated their entire organisation. So much so that they realised that for them, the game was over.
Sir Michael's position was that "conflicts never end through the delivery of kinetic energy". If peace is to be made there has to be dialog and reconciliation, on which I completely agree.
