Martin Sheen proud of uncle's IRA past

[IAN 2411]

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

LOL! I was just going to say the same thing! Only about 15 hours too late.

I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”

Or other “Freedom Fighters” killed your mother, brother, sibling by blowing them to pieces while they peacefully shopped in Omagh. Are you changing the name so that you feel better? Or are you just burying your head in the sand like an Ostrich?

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”

What I found amusing was the denuseri had the EXACT same thought that I had, to the exact words! While I can understand, sometimes, the need to kill to defend one's country/family, I don't find any kind of killing to be funny, regardless of who's doing it.

But the statement is nonetheless true, for the most part. Whether a group is termed Terrorist or Freedom Fighter can all-too-often depend on who's doing the naming. During WW2, the French Underground were considered patriots by the French, but criminals by the Germans. The American's who rebelled against England were, for the most part, considered criminals and even terrorists (though I doubt they used that term) by the British troops and the Loyalist civilians. Especially those "irregular" units that used guerrilla tactics, such as Francis Marion's group. Even those as nasty as the IRA and al-Qaeda are considered heroes by at least some of their own people.

For my part, when you start deliberately targeting civilians rather than military or infrastructure, you are crossing the line into terrorism. But even that line is blurred. Were the men who bombed German (or English) cities in WW2 acting as military units or as terrorists? When bombing factories, for example, there's little to question. But what about the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, for example? Where they actually aiming at military targets, or terrorizing civilians?

Again, it's all a question of who's doing the defining.

[denuseri]

I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”

Or other “Freedom Fighters” killed your mother, brother, sibling by blowing them to pieces while they peacefully shopped in Omagh. Are you changing the name so that you feel better? Or are you just burying your head in the sand like an Ostrich?

Be well IAN 2411

Oh I wasn't joking around hon...and I have no clue as to why you would think so or try to make this personnel. Although you may claim to not know ...I'm of mixed American and Lebanese /Jewish heritage and it's no secret I was born in Beirut in 1979 and have lost several family members from all three sides to the war I was born into.

Personally I could care less if the Sheen's are proud of whatever they wish to be proud of. I was simply pointing out that there are indeed two or more sides to the topic you presented and that from their "respective" perspectives their point of view concerning themselves and the actions of what they consider to be their enemies is, are, and has been, equally valid in their own eyes.