I have been too disheartened by the week's events, and too glued to the telly, to spend much time on this forum. But I'm glad that this parallel is being drawn.
A relative in NI, who phoned Tuesday to see if my family was safe(since we live near Washington), said that now the US knows what the people in NI have been living with for decades. The same thought occurred to me that day as well. Perhaps now those who support the IRA and have defended their actions on this forum realise the kind of impact terrorism has, how hard it is to combat, and why the British government(and the Irish government) implemented measures such as internment in a desperate effort to stop it. Imagine weekly or daily bombings, shootings and disruptions to your life and imagine the pressure on the government to do something, anything, to stop the killing.
We are hearing calls for vengeance from the public as well as proposals for all sorts of extreme measures, including the deportation of all Arabs or Muslims. Perhaps now Americans understand the frustration, the feeling of helplessness and impotence against a faceless shadow enemy who hides amongst the general public and strikes out in secret.
Suddenly military vehicles and soldiers are on the streets of Washington, stopping civilians and checking IDs, and again I was reminded of NI. There has been a lot of abuse directed at the RUC and the army, but they were there to protect the citizens of NI, and for the most part they did a magnificent job. They were not perfect. No police force or army would be. But I have heard of Arabs being detained and arrested who were later released, and no one has criticised the armed forces for harassing innocent people simply because of their similar background to the terrorists. Instead the feeling here seems to be, "Do whatever it takes to catch these bastards, and if innocent people are affected, well, that's unavoidable - because we have to get them."
I hope that this week's events are never repeated. I also hope that the people who did this and their supporters are hunted down and punished, and I sense that Bush's image in Europe has received a tremendous boost from his handling of this crisis so far. But I also hope that those who have supported the IRA or any other terrorist group realise that the differences are only of degree rather than kind. Americans have been very naive about the world, blessedly so, but now that terrorism has reared its ugly head on these shores I hope that no one ever again says, 'Well those bombers are evil terrorists but these bombers are brave freedom fighters.' They're all evil and they will all have their reward - in the next world if not in this one.
Fortunately SF/IRA are not given to much self-sacrifice except at the time of the hunger strikes.
At that time the Government either didn't know the ideology behind the death fast or didn't care and more people died outside prison than died on the hunger strikes. The hunger strikes created martyrs and made the problems more difficult to resolve.
Let's hope Bush and his advisors don't add fuel to the flames when they act against those they believe produced or assisted in Bloody Tuesday.