"It seems to me you are more to be pitied than laughed at---as for Eamonn Collins well he was just a fucking tout who betrayed his own people."

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Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 10:18:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: webmaster@rjgeib.com
To: guestbook@rjgeib.com
Subject: Form Submission from www.rjgeib.com
Name: William Dallas
Age: 51
email: williamdallas@yahoo.co.uk
WWW_Page: None
City?: Londonderry
State?: Northern Ireland
Country?: United Kingdom
Findout: Another web page
How is life treating you?: Excellent. enjoyed your answer to an I.R.A. thug who e-mailed you comments:

Hi.

Great to surf into your page via an IRA thugs page. Hope all is well Stateside.

Best wishes from the City of Londonderry.

Please visit www.orangenet.org for the truth about Northern Ireland.

Regards

William

      Dear William,

      Thank you for the nice words about my few words about the Irish Republican Army. You would not believe the amount of e-mail I get from IRA sypmathizers accusing me of all kinds of things. On the other hand, I hope you do not mistake me for someone who has the least bit of sympathy for any of the Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. For every tattooed, illiterate IRA "soldier" in prision for shooting some poor sap in the kneecaps, you will find a tattooed, illiterate associate of the Ulster Defense Association or Red Hand Commando incarcerated for some similar act of terrible violence. I see many of the most extreme "Orangemen" in Northern Ireland as the flip side of the IRA. The two have more in common than than in difference.

      To better clarify what I mean, read the below e-mail I received yesterday and then my response:

"please do not sit in the USA and pontificate about a situation where real lives are being lost. You may theorise all you like but you cannot escape the essential fact that today's problems in Ireland are merely a symptom of many years of British misrule and interference in a country where it does not belong.

"You should be ashamed of yourself but seeing the arrogance of your pseudo-historian presentation I would doubt if you know the meaning of humility or shame--perhaps there is a Freudian explanation for this ?

"It seems to me you are more to be pitied than laughed at---as for Eamonn Collins well he was just a fucking tout who betrayed his own people --un fortunately in your case no one least of all you knows who your people are perhaps you should become a weatherman people still give them the benefit of the doubt even with satellite pics tiocfaidh ar la---if you know what that means Mr expert"

      Dear Mark,

      Maybe I am arrogant; but I am a free member of a country that does not poison its future by fixating backwards on its past. It is getting pretty late in the day here in 1999 to be blaming the British for the irrational hatreds which will not die in present day Northern Ireland; 1999 is not 1690, and it is not 1969. Nobody outside of Ireland cares much about Gaelic or Cromwell or Michael Collins. They respect power and admire a country that gets things done. They don't want to hear excuses. I listen to the "Orangeman" irregulars in the Ulster Defense Force threatening bloody murder and spitting their side of the conflict and then I hear the "Irish Republican" killer waxing stupid about the "heroic armed struggle" and screaming their version of history; and all I want to yell back at both the following: "Stop all this nonsense! Learn to get along! And get a real job already!" Enough!

      I will not defend much of what England did to Ireland in the past; neither will I accept it as a justification for why a terrorist should blow people up indiscriminately in the street tomorrow with a car bomb or shoot them in the head in some dark, squalid alley. The Northern Irish "problem" will be solved neither in England nor in the USA nor in the United Nations; it will be solved or not solved by the Irish who live there -- both Catholic and Protestant. And your emotional, irrational attitude of Irish nationalism with respect to the "traitor" Eammon Collins and his brutal murder at the hands of IRA thugs is precisely why 1.) I despair the "Troubles" will ever be resolved, with the land festering and bleeding and groaning under the burden of hatred and revenge forever -- just like in the Balkans!, and 2.) why I am so happy my ancestors left Ireland for happier climes in North America. It is not enough to feel; you must also think.

      The tribal blood feuds of religion and revenge! Hundreds of years of accumulated grievances! Murder in the shadows! "Two weasels fighting in a hole!" Who needs that grief? Why carry that around with you? Get over it already! You'll feel much better.

      Sincerely,

      Richard Geib

That is my last word on the subject. Please don't in the least mistake my execration of the Irish Republican Army for approval for the Protestant paramilitaries.

      I trust this e-mail finds you well in Londonberry.

      Very Truly Yours,

      Richard Geib