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[IP] more on more on what does win mean



Begin forwarded message:

From: Denis Russell <D.M.Russell@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 25, 2006 10:04:52 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on more on what does win mean

At 07:16 -0400 25/6/06, David Farber wrote:

...From: Simon Higgs <simon@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 24, 2006 12:19:17 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, HLin@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] what does wi mean
Reply-To: simon@xxxxxxxxx

David Farber wrote:

Begin forwarded message:
From: "Lin, Herb" <HLin@xxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2006 5:32:44 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Secret U.S. Program Tracks Global Bank
Transfers
Will someone tell me what it means for us to "win"?
Thanks.. Interested parties want to know.
herb


As someone who grew up under the constant "threat" of the IRA, this
is a really easy one.

To "win" against terrorism means that life remains untouched and
unaffected by any consequence or by-product of a terrorist act.

...
As someone else who lived most of his adult life under the constant threat of IRA terrorism, this is an easy one to me too. To win means
1: To see my government cease to imprison "IRA Terrorists" without trial in the notorious "H-block" prisons (though they continue to imprison other terrorists without trial in other prisons). (I call this bit "losing".
2: To see people who used to rely on the gun now start to rely on the ballot box (faltering though this process undoubtedly is).
3: To be able to drive around the old battle lines (the Ardoyne, the Falls road) without seeing soldiers in armoured vehicles, and to go into pubs in downtown Belfast without worrying about being blown up.
4: To see ordinary decent folk re-building lives and communities, though the building of trust will take a generation. 

... etc.
This isn't winning against one side or the other, it is winning against the mind-set that drives good honest people to want to kill each other just because they belong to the other group. And the fight isn't actually won and never will be entirely. And it wasn't won by guns, though it would have been lost without the use of them by the army imperfect though that process undoubtedly was. 

        Denis


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