> > A serious worry as Europe's response is likely to be driven by Britain. After the Omagha bombing, Tony Blair promised draconian and hard-hitting legislation against Irish terrorists, and insisted that there could be no peace made with terrorists.
>
> Hmm....actually, when I said Europe, I was referring to continental Europe - Britain has been the chief US ally in the past, and I've always greatly admired them for that. Your comments now make me uncertain of this, but I'm still hopeful.

It's always nice to hear foreigners say that they don't consider Britain to be part of Europe :)

> Not a good past record...perhaps he will take a tougher stance on terrorism now. Let's hope so anyways. As for the rest of Europe, I still hold out some hope for Germany, but the others - I'm going to single out France and Belgium here as the leaders of this group - will be sure to back out as soon as it is safe to bash America again.
>
> --jon

Belgium, as current chair of the EU, will officially co-ordinate the European response, and Germany will have a huge influence on the NATO response. But over all it will be Britain that probably calls the shots, due to the close relationship that you mentioned. Blair seems to be keeping to the hard line this time (or at least so far), and I can only hope that he sees sense and also applies it to Irish terrorism after this.

In related news, David Trimble, Northern Ireland's First Minister, has called for Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA) to be excluded from the new Northern Ireland Assembly unless the IRA start decommissioning weapons. Gerry Adams (convicted IRA terrorist and leader of Sinn Fein) has called for this to be blocked, on the grounds that it is a breach of the Good Friday Agreement on which the peace process is based.

He will probably get away with this on current showing, even though the Good Friday Agreement clearly states that Sinn Fein will not be invited to the Assembly untill after IRA decommissioning is underway. As it stands, I would guess that a fully armed and unrepentant terrorist organisation will soon be the dominant political force in the area.

winter"Well, it scares me"mute