> OK, I was wrong. It is apparently necessary suspend civil liberties to
> deal with terrorism. CC to Ashcroft, I;ll sign up for the
> Antiterrorism Division of the US Atty's Office. jks (formerly civil
> libertarian)
>
Actually the suspension of civil liberties with internment lead to the Derry anti-internment march and the British paramilitaries murder of civilians on that march, which most see as the catalyst to where things started really getting violent.
The IRA has existed from before Easter 1916 until today, but in the late 1960's it was moribund, and almost totally inactive (and under a heavy Marxist influence). In the late 1960's, a civil rights movement among Catholics (nationalists) arose. Irish republicans consider England an illegitimate power in Ireland (to this day Sinn Fein does not take the seats it's elected to in British parliament). This new nationalist civil rights movement however had no problem addressing England and demanding rights such as "one man, one vote", an end to discrimination for housing and employment, and so on. During this period civil rights marchers were attacked and beaten, often by off-duty police officers, and pogroms occurred where Catholics in or bordering loyalist/Protestant neighborhoods were beaten and burned out of their homes by roving mobs, often supported by the almost totally Protestant local police force. In March of 1969 a number of bombs exploded at electrical substations that caused massive blackouts in Belfast, and such bombings continued until October. This was blamed on the moribund IRA, but it was actually the work of Protestant loyalists trying to destabilize the government. In fact, the IRA failed miserably at defending Catholic neighborhoods during the pogroms where Catholic families were being burned out of their houses. There were some old IRA men who tried to defend the neighborhoods with old rifles that barely worked, but it didn't do much. On December 28th, 1969, a group within the then moribund IRA split off and formed the Provisional IRA, which is what people refer to nowadays when they speak of the IRA. At that point some IRA activity started, but not much, the first British soldier wasn't killed until February of 1971. In August of 1971, internment was introduced, which created an upsurge of violence, and then Bloody Sunday occurred in January 1972, which was the real end of the civil rights campaign and beginning of a very violent and bloody period. According to the Sutton index of deaths, about 3 deaths probably caused by republicans happened in 1969, 9 in 1970 (including 2 Catholic criminals), and 18 in 1971 prior to internment and Bloody Sunday. In 1972, about 287 people were killed by the IRA (and 80 people killed by the British army, 118 by Protestant paramilitary groups).
So the suspension of civil liberties to deal with "terrorism" did more to derail the chance of any peaceful settlement and unleashed an orgy of death that lasts to this day (although it's been much better since the Good Friday agreement, bombs thrown at little girls going to school aside). As the American administration has announced it is withdrawing it's troops from Saudi Arabia, which is what Al Quaeda wanted all along, perhaps the American elite are smarter than their British cousins.