A long time coming, but an astonishing result

Bloody Sunday.
If you had told me in the early 1970s that there would ever come a day when any government, least of all the government of the UK, would issue such an honest and devastating assessment of its own actions, I would not have believed it.
Of course, there are those who see it as a step too far in laying blame, particularly when a commanding officer is singled out for blame, while individual soldiers who shot and killed have their identities protected, and those higher up the chain are mostly let off the hook.
Families of the victims have had, for the most part, no appetite for revenge now that the innocence of their loved ones is established. One survivor says "Jail isn't something I can see happening. That wouldn't, in any way, bother me, I have no great desire to see a 60-year-old man go to jail."

Things are not looking good for Sinn Fein

Parliament has decided to fine the Sinn Fein party for the crimes of the IRA. And things are looking very bad indeed for the IRA, which has (predictably) been called upon to disband by many parties, including the American envoy to Northern Ireland and six out of ten nationalists and almost half of Sinn Fein supporters.

The shadow of Iraq

Here is another scathing indictment of the process leading up to the Iraqi war, followed by a suspicious look at the Hutton report (these seem to be filling up the news spaces just now, with the general verdict being that it is a whitewash) but this one has an added twist - a Northern Ireland connection.

'A shambles that beggars belief'

With the Northern Ireland peace process hanging by a thread, this might be a good time to check out a blog called Slugger O'Toole and get seriously clued up. Or, for the long view, try CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) (not a blog). Both of these are non-partisan sources, that could really teach Faux News what "fair and balanced" actually means.

The Troubles

They are turning over most of the rocks in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and they all have slithery, filthy things under them. This latest one is the slimiest so far.