The Boston bombing.......and others.

My reaction to the Boston bombing was tempered somewhat by remembrance of the part that Boston, and the US generally, played in the IRA campaign. Large donations to NORAID were collected from Irish pubs and elsewhere, and the  US was the  main source of arms for the IRA, along with Libya. Not a single IRA suspect was ever extradited from America.

 
And this went on for nearly 30 years – 40 if we include the Border campaign of the 1950’s.

 
It featured indiscriminate killings, using car bombs in crowded areas such as pubs and shopping malls. The very elderly Lord Mountbatten was murdered, along with an old lady and two young boys. There were bomb attacks in Manchester and Warrington specifically targeting civilians, office blocks in London, and the slaughter of Army bandsmen and horses in Hyde Park. The total casualties in England were 215 killed and more than 2000 injured.

Perhaps the worst atrocity was the Omagh bombing which killed 29 people, including 6 children, 6 teenagers, a woman pregnant with twins and a number of tourists.

 
In total nearly 2000 people were killed and perhaps 10,000  injured.

 
So perhaps it is timely in this momentous week to recall Margaret Thatcher’s words about one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter.

 
She said ‘Terrorism is indivisible’.