Letter: Just imagine if the USA had suffered the IRA terrorism that Northern Ireland did

As we rightly welcome the visit of President Joe Biden to mark the 25th anniversary of the historic 1998 Belfast Agreement, it is worth noting what would have happened if the Provo IRA gangs had inflicted on his US what they did over the 28 long years of their terror.

Then, proportionate to population, the US would have suffered – at the hands of PIRA alone – about 291,260 dead, or five times their Vietnam War dead, or overall 597,981 dead, apart from another 7.8 million physically injured, and countless more innocent people mentally maimed, while Great Britain would have suffered – again at the hands of PIRA alone – 64,326 dead (even more than were murdered in World War Two by Nazi bombs and rockets dropped on GB), with overall 132,065 dead, and another 1.725 million injured.

Those who now outrageously claim that “there was no alternative” to their cruel campaign of terror, ought to be confronted by such stark figures, which expose the enormity of their wanton savagery, and never let evade or deny their own responsibility for that horror, or for its enduring human – and not only political – consequences.

Tom Carew, Dublin 6