Belonging to a neutral island nation does not protect Irish citizens from getting caught up in tragedy, where terrorists strike. A glance at photographs of missing persons following the London bombs demonstrates that in any city people of many nationalities, races and creeds mingle on the streets and public transport, writes Martin Mansergh
Part of the stupidity of terrorism on this scale is that the target hit is never just one country or its government, but diverse people whose governments are drawn together in solidarity against an indiscriminate threat. The vast majority of Irish people are appalled, and will support reasonable Government measures to protect security in the common travel area.
The cause of such attacks is no justification for them, and any attempt at moral relativism, which treats such acts as no worse than the western policies claimed to have provoked them, should be rejected.
The London suicide bombers and those who sent them did not care who their victims were or how many. This is a different point from criticism of the conduct of modern warfare, that insufficient care is taken to spare the lives of civilians.
The second difference is that democratic governments which go to war are accountable to their parliaments and their electorates, to world public opinion and, to an imperfect degree, to international organisations.
Terrorist organisations are accountable to no one, unless members are identified and caught. They have no mandate from any state or people to wage war on anyone.
The argument is made that people resort to terrorism because of the hopeless imbalance of world power. A relatively well-armed country like Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrated twice in 12 years that it was no match in conventional warfare for the US and its allies. The ruthless terrorism of the insurgency poses a greater challenge, although most of its victims are Iraqi.
It is one thing where there is support from a large majority of the population for democratic self-determination to rise up and, where necessary, use guerrilla methods against unwanted occupation. It is another thing entirely for little-known organisations, whose badly flawed ideologies have no popular mandate, to inflict deliberate barbarous attacks on defenceless civilian populations.
There are few examples of "mindless" terrorism. As Tony Blair was quick to observe, the threat will never be overcome by security measures alone, without addressing political causes or confronting and disentangling ideological mindsets. The Middle East problem has over decades made a disproportionate contribution to international conflict and particularly terrorism, and still requires urgent resolution.
The inadequately justified war in Iraq is seen as the proximate cause of the bombings in Madrid and London. It should not be forgotten, however, that 9/11 came largely out of the blue, at a time when Bush was disposed to pull in the US's horns rather than stretch its power; 9/11 should caution against thinking that an obvious, immediate cause is necessary for such attacks to take place.
Bomb attacks should not provoke policy U-turns, nor should they deflect governments from what they ought to be doing anyway. The government and national policy changed in Madrid, only because the fatal mistake was made of lying opportunistically to the electorate about the likely perpetrators of the bomb attacks.
Tony Blair's government in contrast, which has reacted magnificently under pressure, has not been weakened in any way. Indeed, when the people of a country are under attack, they instinctively rally round their government for protection and leadership.
What happened in London throws into sharp relief the established interpretation here of the impact of earlier IRA bomb attacks. People far outside the ranks of the republican movement, and in many cases deeply opposed to it, accept that bombs in the city intimidated the British government into appeasing the IRA, without political and chronological analysis to support its claim to have concentrated establishment minds.
Underlying all this has been a woeful misunderstanding of British psychology, which is remarkably stoical yet determined, having faced and survived far worse in the blitz.
Bombs in London put the British government under no popular pressure whatever to concede anything to the perpetrators. Fortunately, enough has been learnt from the Irish experience not to revert to the other extreme of finding plausible suspects to convict, regardless of a lack of real evidence.
From the progress of the investigation, it seems that forensic science has made a lot of advances in 30 years. The British government is also acutely aware of the need to avoid demonising a settled ethnic and religious community, whose support is vital in isolating and rejecting the fanatics.
IRA bomb attacks on British cities, though somewhat different in character, were no better justified than the ones last week. It is much to the credit of the leaders of a substantially successful Irish war of independence that they did not follow through suggestions of carrying bomb attacks to British cities. Parnell was horrified at the proposal from Irish-American sources in the early 1880s.
Final recognition is awaited that armed propaganda can do nothing but damage to Ireland now or in the future, and can only further postpone hope of achieving peacefully within anyone's lifetime more widely shared constitutional republican objectives.
In dealing with causes, there is a world of difference between treating legitimate political grievances and vindicating people's rights, and giving ground under terrorist pressure to semi-utopian unilateral demands that are not democratically backed and that flagrantly ignore or trample over the rights of others.
Regarding our own situation, it is high time to recognise that the main argument about the use of Shannon by US aircraft is over. The post-Iraq war UN resolution 1546 of June 2004 unequivocally mandated member states to assist the multinational force and the establishment of democratic government in Iraq. It is profoundly irresponsible for anyone to suggest to influenceable minds or their masters that we lay ourselves open to the risk of terrorist attack unless we cease to fulfil our UN obligations.