Terrorism is another form of warfare. It's the war of the power- and/or the stateless. Of course it's cruel, but so is traditional warfare. The dead are not deader after a terrorist blast than after a conventional cruise missile hit. One can argue that traditional warfare is fair, it's only directed towards regular fighters, and regulated and sanctioned by international law, - while terrorism is illegal, it's directed against innocent civilians, and it’s unfair. That distinction doesn't hold very well.

War is an act of violence, which denies any law or rule, which transcends the group or nation. The so-called international law is a set of multilateral agreements that breaks down when the agreeing parties decide to fight instead of talk. If international law should have a right in its own, as claimed by the internationalists, the US-UK invasion in Iraq is bluntly illegal.

The thin red line between "legitimate" force against standing armies, and "illegitimate" force against innocent civilians is a large gray area. Let's not mention the collateral civilian damage that regular armies do inflict all the time. The concept of "total war" has been consecrated in WWII, and since then been applied in many "legal" wars. Let's forget Dresden by the Allies in WWII. When the US in Vietnam couldn't find a suitable army, they defoliated the life hood infrastructure of the civilians and the civilians themselves by carpet bombardments. The Israeli army destroys civilians’ houses as a routine.

Finally in a war - conventional or unconventional - civilians are never innocent, certainly not in democracies. Bush forged an utter lie, the WMD's (a Tonkin-like legend), to drag his country and Blair into Iraq. Yet, Bush and Blair have been re-elected. Every civilian contributes to the economical fabric that sustains war. No civilian is innocent, ever.

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If we want to condemn any war (be it conventional or terrorist) as fair or unfair, we have to look at the motives of the war-farers, less at their methods, less at their morals. "Terrorism is utterly bad" and "conventional war is good" is only based on a judgment about methods.

What brings us to the IRA. Ireland has been for centuries plundered and culturally defoliated by the British, in a campaign short of genocide. Irish have been driven out of their lands, there has been a massive "plantation" (organized immigration) by Scottish, Welsh and English settlers who got free ethnically cleansed land in exchange. The Irish struggle has many characteristics of a classical anti-occupation movement. Ireland got its independence long ago, but there is still Northern Ireland where the imported plantated Anglophiles still hold on to their privileges, they refuse to re-unite, and do not fear terrorist and discriminatory methods either.

Of course one can argue about tactics, and whether Ireland could already have been reunited without terrorist methods. I rather doubt that. The situation also differs with the one in Wales and Scotland, where there was a democratic support for autonomy - while Northern Island still objects to reunification. The fact stays that IRA claims (as with the Basks in Spain) do have a broader historical and popular legitimacy than for instance the claims of the Madrid bombers or the London Underground blasters. They only represent some lunatic claims of Islamophiliacs in Europe, an area where they do not have any historical, religious or cultural roots at all.

If we rightly so feel mad and outraged about the London blasts, it shouldn't have to do with the tactics or the methods used. It should have to do with the historical context and with our perceived legitimacy of the claims of the perpetrators. Which is none. Europe has fought and resisted to Islam since the 8-th century. They are free to seek their happiness in their old (Middle East) and new (SE Asia, the 'Stans) territories. But Europe should keep its identity. If they disagree, they are free to leave. But leave morals out of the picture. The largest part of our brain is still primate, and primates defend their group, their territory and their way of life.

I can't see how IRA proved that terrorism works as you asserted in your first message. From where I stand I only see an utterly defeated IRA that didn't make any progress while bombing and is still getting nowhere when trying to act respectably because of their bloody legacy. The fact that they are at the negotiating table is hardly a 'win'. Indeed it only shows that they LOST 30 years terrorizing innocents while they could have been part of that table peacefully from the beginning. Unless of course the UK government was unwilling to talk to them before they started their war.