>"2 if it were, I still wouldn't get what you are trying to
>say, is this like supposed to be a pissing contest between
>the U.S. and N.I.?"
>
>No, because I admit we would lose in a pissing contest, you
>guys are pros.
>
>The point is, america is not the only country to strike back
>at the heart of their real or percieved enemies and kill
>civilians in the process. Your countrymen have done it too
>if you're Irish. How many innocents died in the UK? To some
>you are/were at war and all's fair. Why are we any
>different? You fought your opression, we're nipping ours in
>the bud because we can.

Careful now redneck there are some big words coming your way and I don't want you to strain the hamster too much, but here it goes.

The problem as I see it is the U.S. and it's citizens have absolutely no idea how terrorism works. We do, we've lived with it all our lives whereas it's a relatively new thing for you people. Read my other post about your war being over and you will see what I mean. With the Iraqi situation deteriorating at a rate of knots you have got to get your shit together immediately or else you are in for a world of pain, both domestically and in Iraq. However given the level of political naivety, historical and social ignorance and palin stupiudity evidenced by the U.S. administration I can't see that happening.I said when all this started with the US shooting protesters in Northern Iraq that it reminded me of Bloody Sunday 1972 in Derry which many date as the real start of the Northern Irish conflict which led to thousands of deaths, civilian and military in both the Republic and Ulster to no good end. The parallels with Iraq are staggering. It looks as though Iraq is descending into the kind of geurilla warrfare that plagued this country for decades and is still fizzling away quitely in the background. For the U.S. this is disasterous, you cannot win a war against stongly supported geurillas, as they simply do not fight on your terms, striking only where you are exposed and they can escape with minimum casualties. As the sutuation progresses and the occupying troops become more (justifiably) paranoid, increased civilian deaths are inevitable, further adding fuel to the flames and gunmen to the geurilla ranks. The problem in Iraq is whilst the invasion was well planned, no-one seems to have given any thought to what to do with the country after it was conquered. Consequently, ordinary Iraqis have no electricty, poor food supplies and many have no clean drinking water almost 3 moonths on from when the Baathist regime collapse. Many have not been paid in months. It is difficult to argue to people in that position, when you have killed their children and rendered them homeless and unemployed, that all of this is for their benefit. Throw in the fact that almost every family in Irag has at least two or more automatic weapons and you have a real problem. Things are going to get alot worse, beleive me, I've seen it unfold before.

Asides from this, the perceived insult to the arab world by the U.S. means that the likelyhood of terrorism on the mainland U.S. remains undeminished and possibly heightened. Basically, I think Bush and his fuckwitt pals have painted your country into a corner and I don't know how you are going to get out of it without killing a great many comepletely innocent people and suffering enormous casulaties, albeit over a long number of years.

I don't think the danger to America comes from "terrorism", what will eventually destroy the U.S., much like it destroyed the ancient Roman Empire upon which the U.S. global stratedgy seems to base itself, is the underpriveleged, the ignored and the disenfranchised.
As the Roman emoire funelled more and more power and money to the wealthy elite, so the poor and disenfranchised were squeezed ever harder to provide for them, until eventually the refused the social order imposed. In 50 years or so, English will no longer be the lingua prima of the U.S., and I think the cracks will start to appear then. The ever greedy actions of Bush and his cronies where the poorest people in the U.S. are basically ignored, where education and healthcare are a privelege not a right, where job security is non existant, yet tax breaks and freindly contract backhanders are given to the powerful and wealthy will only accellerate this process.