Ian Cardinal wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John >> >> IMHO it was Bin Laden that stopped the IRA in it's tracks .... >> The IRA were funded (mostly) by donations from America (in the main >> part, from Boston). The destruction of the Twin Towers showed >> Americans of the true horror of terrorism. The result of the 9/11 >> atrocity was what caused the Americans to stop their funding of the >> IRA. Suddenly, the Americans realised that Great Britain was a >> friend and an ally that they needed and that the senseless struggle >> in Ireland was never going to be resolved by bloodshed. >> > There is much in your analysis I think, though realistically the > attrition of funding probably began even earlier than that. The fall > of the Iron Curtain in 1989 made things look possible in a way that > they simply weren't before.
I suspect the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings may have woken them up a bit too. In a previous life I worked for a US bank, whose main US data centre was next door to the WTC. When the bomb went off, our phones in London were suddenly red-hot with fear-crazed Americans shouting "Oh my Gaaaad, it's terrifying! We're all gonna die!" and such. Having twenty-odd years of being regularly prevented from going about our business by embittered Irishman trying to blow stuff up, we took great pleasure in winding up our American cow-orkers :-) -- Dave Larrington <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk> It is not possible to call a complex number from a phone box.
