Don't blame the IRA.

• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

Matthew Rothschild's article in your February issue both astounded and enraged me ("Beware the Anti-Muslim Hysteria"). I thought progressives opposed invasion and occupations.

Rothschild condemns the Irish Republican Army for resisting Britain's invasion and occupation of their homeland that began 800 years ago. The IRA is castigated for "wanton acts of violence." The IRA are patriots and freedom fighters. They have endured torture, imprisonment, and execution by the Brits because of their defense of the Irish people. The Irish people have resisted English rule through these many years: tenant farmers forced into near slavery by English land "owners;" armed rebellion; the so-called famine in which one million Irish people died of starvation while England exported their agricultural profits; the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic in which all the signers of the Proclamation were shot, including the great socialist and labor leader James...