Sir, - What if, from the 1970s onwards, the British government had treated Ireland as the US is now treating Afghanistan?
After the first IRA bomb killings in Britain, the British government would have demanded that the Irish Government hand over named suspects to be tried, in secret, by British military courts. It would not have pursued the extradition process through the courts and would have refused to provide evidence of the suspects' guilt. The suspects, had they been handed over, would not have been allowed to choose their own lawyers; the courts would have been able to impose the death penalty and there would have been no right of appeal.
Had its demands been refused, the British government would have called in the RAF to destroy Ireland's air defences and then to bomb every town, city and village in the republic, taking special care to destroy RT╔. The British government would then have encouraged a northern alliance of the UDA, the UVF and the LVF to invade the Republic. Its liaison officers would have directed the RAF's bombing to assist the alliance in invading and in overthrowing our Government, with a spot of rape, looting and murder along the way.
Once the alliance had done most of the work, the British Army might have arrived, declaring it had adopted a shoot-to-kill policy while excusing its allies' excesses as the sort of thing that happens in a war.
I wonder, though, whether the Irish Government would have allowed the RAF to refuel at Shannon. - Yours, etc.,
Brian J. Goggin, Castleconnell, Co Limerick.