[setanta]

Originally Posted by Shasown

I am not denying it, major mistakes, that in the end cost lives, were made on all sides.

Do you honestly think there isnt a politican involved in the whole episode who doesnt look back and think, if only.... That includes maggie head up her arse thatcher, If Wilson had dissolved the national assembly in 1969, just after allowing the troops to enter Derry, he may have took some flak for it, but on the other hand there may not have followed the twenty odd years of carnage that did happen.

If the Paras hadnt been sent to the province, if another less aggressive unit had gone, If the Paras had been rotated back off the line in 1972, and a proper inquiry set up, instead of the Widgery fiasco, the whole sequence of events investigated and proper criticism and charges levelled at all those responsible......

We will never really know how different it could have been.

It's messy stuff, that's for sure, but sometimes aggression is the only thing that an oppressed minority can use at a certain point to make a stand, you know? I don't know how I would have responded to seeing that Civil Rights group being battered about the place if I had been watching at the time.