San Francisco Mayor London Breed has dishonored her city by honoring Martin McGuinness, who died in 2017, for his "military service." McGuinness' only military service involved active terrorism in Northern Ireland and the British mainland.

And Breed certainly didn't hold back her praise here. A member of McGuinness' party, Sinn Fein, tweeted the commendation.

Óglach Martin Mc Guinness, MP, MLA, & Joint First Minister,

posthumously honoured by the City & County of San Francisco, USA

🇮🇪🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/OxnvZwNm8C — Declan Kearney (@DeclanKearneySF) March 10, 2019



But as I say, saluting McGuinness' "military service" is ridiculous. McGuinness wasn't just an Irish Republican Army terrorist throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, he was a top IRA leader. And while the IRA claimed it targeted British soldiers and government officials, the group also targeted and murdered hundreds of civilians. McGuinness supported these attacks and directly supervised a 1987 bombing that killed 10 civilians.

Although other anti-Catholic/Irish terrorist groups also committed atrocities in Northern Ireland, and the British Army made some grievous errors, the IRA was the primary culprit in violence targeting civilians. This violence touched many lives. My mother, for example was a nurse at London's Harrods department store when the IRA bombed it and killed 3 civilians and 3 police officers in 1983.

This is not to say that McGuinness doesn't deserve an award per se. Leading negotiations for the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, McGuinness was instrumental in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement with Britain and pro-British political parties in Northern Ireland. That agreement has greatly reduced the sectarian violence that had plagued Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. And in forging that peace, McGuinness, and his counterpart negotiators from other Northern Irish political parties, and the British government, deserve praise for their moral courage. Albeit imperfectly, it's a peace that still sustains today with popular multi-sectarian support.

Still, distinctions matter. Any salute to McGuinness' military service is a salute to terrorism. Breed has abandoned moral nuance to dishonor dead civilians.