Shoot to Kill

The Shoot To Kill program was a riveting exposition of what really went on behind the headlines in Ulster, and revealed just a little about how far successive UK governments went to eliminate Republican guerrillas. I use the word deliberately because terrorists of one era more often than not end up being recognised by a later era as 'freedom-fighters'. The problem with the 'Troubles' in the northeastern six counties of Ireland (and note there is and never has been any such 'country' as 'Nortern Ireland' - and Ulster consists of nine counties not six) has always been that too many outsiders meddled and weighed-in with opinions based on total ignorance of recent as well as older Irish history. We Brits have much to answer for and instead of going to the root of the problems and resolving them chose instead to fight violence with violence; Shoot To Kill was only one aspect of the fight-terror-with-terror principles we adopted. All the thirty years did was to add just one more infamous chapter of 'British' one-sidedness in dealing with the Irish. Trouble is we're always right, right or wrong!