Sir, - The attack on ordinary people going about their daily lives has been rightly condemned and those who carried it out have become pariahs in our society. Perhaps it is a sign of maturity that we are no longer ambivalent about republican violence, that we no longer attach any kind of legitimacy to such actions but instead regard them for what they are - the senseless slaughter of human beings for some outdated political "cause".
However, the condemnations coming from some quarters have a stink of hypocrisy about them. Bombing civilians is a terrorist act and there can never be any justification for it, whether it is done by some paramilitary group of fanatics intent on wrecking a peace process or by the aircraft of some national air force for the purpose of protecting political or economic interests or boosting the standing of a disgraced president.
It is not that difficult to understand the motives of the Real IRA; they are merely copying the methods of many legitimately-elected governments (and dictatorships) which have blasted people to death when it seemed appropriate to them. Guernica, London, Coventry, Dresden, Nanking, Hiroshima, Beirut, Sarajevo, Baghdad, Belfast, Hanoi, Dublin, Enniskillen and now Omagh (to name just some) have all suffered the 20th-century curse of terror bombing. The peoples of East Timor and Lebanon have been bombed by aircraft manufactured in cosy democracies whose leaders are curiously silent about the resulting civilian deaths. The Real IRA are without doubt evil terrorists, but they are not the only ones.
Acts of savagery such as the Omagh bombing are not carried out by beasts or monsters, as some commentators would have us believe. People plan them, people give the orders and people obey the orders given.
That's what makes it all so frightening. - Yours, etc.
Terry Butler,
Church Road,
East Wall,
Dublin 3.