Ending Strife in Ulster

Joel Krieger suggests that a “joint Anglo-Irish peacekeeping force” would somehow bring peace to British-occupied Northern Ireland (“Knocking the Sense Out of Violence,” Op-Ed Page, March 28). This is as absurd as Margaret Thatcher’s statement that Northern Ireland is as British as the constituency in England which elected her. What is needed to bring peace to colonized nations is decolonization--not merely the threat of decolonization as suggested by Krieger.

The Algerian War would still be in progress if successive French governments had insisted after the fashion of Thatcher that Algeria was as French as Anjou or Burgundy. One can argue about the borders of Armenia or Poland, but the Irish border is incontestably the sea and continued attempts to assert British sovereignty over any part of Irish territory will provoke unending and justified defensive resistance by the IRA.

Instead of spending large sums of pounds each year to subsidize, arm and unite the Protestant minority in Ireland to resist the democratically expressed wish of the majority of the Irish people for national sovereignty, Britain should offer to subsidize the repatriation to the mainland of as many of the 900,000 Protestants in the six counties who are more loyal to the land of their English and Scottish forebears than to the land of their birth.

The pathetic argument that reunification would be too expensive for Irish taxpayers grows weaker with every passing year as the cost in lives, personal injury, property damage, and loss of investment and tourism mounts. Eventually, Irish and British officials will realize that British withdrawal from Ireland is not only consistent with their professed respect for democracy and self-determination, but is also in the best economic interests of both nations and their peoples.

MICHAEL A. McDERMOTT

Irish National Caucus of California

Newport Beach