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Ivor Bell arrested and charged in Jean McConville murder investigation

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    #752
    twowheelsgood
    Registered Users Posts: 759 ✭✭✭twowheelsgood


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Do you think all killings in NI where murder? I need a yes or no answer to that before I continue this debate, or if you can't give a yes or no...please make the distinction for us.
    There is no great difficulty with your question in relation to either republican or loyalists paramilitaries. All of their killings were murder because neither of them had authority to kill.

    Both claimed to be acting in the name of others but they were not mandated to do so (and please don’t give me any hogwash about the difficulty of holding a plebiscite. Only the most dishonest would try to claim that anything more than a minority of those who aspired to a united Ireland gave support to those who would use violence to bring it about).

    Homicide is murder unless an argument of accident, self-defense or legitimate warfare can be cited.


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    #753
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Well maybe if you had been brave enough to to define what you see as 'murder' then there would have been no need to point out your hypocrisy here.
    No hypocrisy on my part. I'm not playing your game of dissembling. You didn't answer my question of whether Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered, because it highlights the nonsense of your evasive personal game. We both know Jean McConville was murdered - you'd rather play armchair games than own up to that fact.

    Happyman42 wrote: »
    I have clearly given my views and feeling on the death of Jean McConville. The reasons for that death are not clear, unless you wish to preempt a trial and, as usual, jump to hysterical, agenda laden conclusions.
    You've demonstrated a need to dissemble alright. Only one agenda evident here.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    You called my attitude to her death 'disgusting', the way this woman and her family is being used to get at somebody else is what is 'disgusting'.
    Keep telling yourself that. At least the Provos had some degree of self-awareness when they lied about what had happened the woman.


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    #754
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    twowheelsgood wrote: »
    There is no great difficulty with your question in relation to either republican or loyalists paramilitaries. All of their killings were murder because neither of them had authority to kill.

    Both claimed to be acting in the name of others but they were not mandated to do so (and please don’t give me any hogwash about the difficulty of holding a plebiscite. Only the most dishonest would try to claim that anything more than a minority of those who aspired to a united Ireland gave support to those who would use violence to bring it about).

    Homicide is murder unless an argument of accident, self-defense or legitimate warfare can be cited.

    And that neat little philosophical argument shows the general uselessness of neat philosophical niceties when faced with real life.

    Both the groups you mention believed themselves to be at war, and had army structures where orders where given and obeyed.

    When the British army opened fire on Bloody Sunday no philosophy was going to convince anybody that it was anything other than a war.
    In effect, the reality trumps your argument imo.


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    #755
    Dyr
    Registered Users Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    So how many pages is it since Ivor bell or jean mcconville was mentioned?


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    #756
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    And that neat little philosophical argument shows the general uselessness of neat philosophical niceties when faced with real life.

    Both the groups you mention believed themselves to be at war, and had army structures where orders where given and obeyed.

    When the British army opened fire on Bloody Sunday no philosophy was going to convince anybody that it was anything other than a war.
    In effect, the reality trumps your argument imo.

    And there's the dissembling. A theory completely at odds with the democratic choices of the people of NI, as expressed over all years of the conflict, but that's not 'real life' enough for some armchair general outside the time and place involved. A self-selecting minority simply 'believing' in something doesn't serve for any sort of defence, either in law, or in broader 'real life'.


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    #757
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Bambi wrote: »
    So how many pages is it since Ivor bell or jean mcconville was mentioned?

    This page?


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    #758
    twowheelsgood
    Registered Users Posts: 759 ✭✭✭twowheelsgood


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Both the groups you mention believed themselves to be at war, and had army structures where orders where given and obeyed.
    Indeed they did. And some mafia types also believe themselves to be soldiers in a war. They of course would take the same firm measures against “rats“ and of course consider such actions wholly justified..

    All of which testifies to the remarkable capacity of people to rationalise almost anything. Other than sociopaths or even psychopaths, I doubt there are, or can be, any people who can do the most appalling wrongs and who have not convinced themselves that their actions can be justified.

    (As an aside there is an interesting vocabulary associated with those that would expose wrongdoing. We have derogatory terms like tout and rat when we approve of the wrongdoing. But we have the much more positive, happy-clappy “whistle blower” term when we do not!)
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    When the British army opened fire on Bloody Sunday no philosophy was going to convince anybody that it was anything other than a war.
    Elementary logic strikes you down again. The requirement that those that kill have authority is a necessary condition. The PIRA and the loyalists did not have this, police forces and regular armies like the BA do.

    A necessary condition of course is not a sufficient condition (this is where logic abandons you). To examine the latter requires a case by case examination. And as with any police force, some of their killings will be justified, some will be unjustified or even murder, as was the case on Bloody Sunday.

    But PIRA don’t achieve the “necessary” hurdle, so a case by case examination of their killings is unnecessary.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    In effect, the reality trumps your argument imo.
    Reality is irrelevant here. I have no expectation that PIRA will come to retrospectively see the errors of their ways on the basis of anything I, or anyone else says, any more than I expect mafiosa types to acknowledge that they too are murders.

    You asked a question about when a homicide amounted to murder. I answered. Nothing more.


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    #759
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    alastair wrote: »
    And there's the dissembling. A theory completely at odds with the democratic choices of the people of NI, as expressed over all years of the conflict, but that's not 'real life' enough for some armchair general outside the time and place involved. A self-selecting minority simply 'believing' in something doesn't serve for any sort of defence, either in law, or in broader 'real life'.

    Reality: A former leader of this 'self selecting minority' sharing power and in Windsor Castle dining with 'the Chief Of The British Army
    Unreal: clinging to the belief that a campaign had no legitimacy based on a moral code that none of the sides conformed to, including those who had the monarch as their chief. Carry on!


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    #760
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Reality: A former leader of this 'self selecting minority' sharing power and in Windsor Castle dining with 'the Chief Of The British Army
    So? Does that change their culpability for their acts?

    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Unreal: clinging to the belief that a campaign had no legitimacy based on a moral code that none of the sides conformed to, including those who had the monarch as their chief. Carry on!
    The campaign (of murder) had no legitimacy, based on the democratic will of the people, of morality, or by any other measure you might care to apply. And yet more whataboutery - quell surprise!


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    #761
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    twowheelsgood wrote: »
    Indeed they did. And some mafia types also believe themselves to be soldiers in a war. They of course would take the same firm measures against “rats“ and of course consider such actions wholly justified..<br />
    <br />
    All of which testifies to the remarkable capacity of people to rationalise almost anything. Other than sociopaths or even psychopaths, I doubt there are, or can be, any people who can do the most appalling wrongs and who have not convinced themselves that their actions can be justified.<br />
    <br />
    (As an aside there is an interesting vocabulary associated with those that would expose wrongdoing. We have derogatory terms like tout and rat when we approve of the wrongdoing. But we have the much more positive, happy-clappy “whistle blower” term when we do not!)<br />
    <br />
    <br />
    Elementary logic strikes you down again. The requirement that those that kill have authority is a necessary condition. The PIRA and the loyalists did not have this, police forces and regular armies like the BA do.<br />
    <br />
    A necessary condition of course is not a sufficient condition (this is where logic abandons you). To examine the latter requires a case by case examination. And as with any police force, some of their killings will be justified, some will be unjustified or even murder, as was the case on Bloody Sunday.<br />
    <br />
    But PIRA don’t achieve the “necessary” hurdle, so a case by case examination of their killings is unnecessary.<br />
    <br />
    Reality is irrelevant here. I have no expectation that PIRA will come to retrospectively see the errors of their ways on the basis of anything I, or anyone else says, any more than I expect mafiosa types to acknowledge that they too are murders. <br />
    <br />
    You asked a question about when a homicide amounted to murder. I answered. Nothing more.
    <br />
    'Reality is irrelevant here'... Sorry, it's a nice sunny day and I don't have time for philosophy gymnastics, the weeds need killing, really, not metaphorically.


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    #762
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    'Reality is irrelevant here'
    The reality being the self-serving 'justification' of the Provos, for their acts - albeit it being at odds with the democratic will of the people, the law, and any other measure outside their own 'beliefs'.


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    #763
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    alastair wrote: »
    So? Does that change their culpability for their acts?
    Take Martin as an example, he has admitted his role in the IRA, yet he is in Winsdor, meeting The Chief Of The British Armed forces. If that ain't been given legitimacy I fail to see what is.


    The campaign (of murder) had no legitimacy, based on the democratic will of the people, of morality, or by any other measure you might care to apply. And yet more whataboutery - quell surprise!

    Your problem is with the British Alastair, take it up with them maybe.


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    #764
    twowheelsgood
    Registered Users Posts: 759 ✭✭✭twowheelsgood


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    'Reality is irrelevant here'... Sorry, it's a nice sunny day and I don't have time for philosophy gymnastics, the weeds need killing, really, not metaphorically.
    You asked a question about a theoretical point and dismiss an answer because it is irrelevant to practical reality!

    You did not ask the practical question: “Which killings in the conflict constituted murder and how does the answer to that question affect how the future of Northern Ireland will evolve”?

    You asked the academic question “Which killings in the conflict constituted murder“.

    Don’t ask a question about the principle if you’re only interest is in the practical.

    But let’s run with your line of thinking in relation to the practical. The world is what it is, combatants believed what they believed and there is no utility in any of us sitting in ivory towers assessing their morals.

    Bloody Sunday? So the brutal ways often employed in the old British Empire seeped in to the minds of the paratroopers that day, and we know the consequences. But those men were moulded as they moulded, they are who they are and you would dismiss as having no bearing on reality, any argument that what they did was wrong?

    Lenny Murphy and his butcher friends? (Someone else who thought of himself as a soldier!). Will you chastise us for seeing him as a monster and insist we must accept that he saw the world as he say it and that was the reality.


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    #765
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    . If Jean McConville was an informer then she knew what she was doing and what the sanction was, as any active service army member knows.
    Because of the threat an informer poses they have always been summarily dealt with.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Murder is never right, and I have never defended it, by anybody.

    You must be having a laugh. Come on, change one of the statements.

    You say you don't defend murder but you are defending the murder of Jean McConville.


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    #766
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    Their 85% civilian kill ratio (only 4% Republicans) speaks for itself.
    alastair wrote: »
    You just look like a clown shilling that kind of guff.

    Only 4% of loyalist killings were Republicans despite being supplied with intelligence and killers by the UDR and RUC. See: Glenane Gang.


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    #767
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    And that neat little philosophical argument shows the general uselessness of neat philosophical niceties when faced with real life.

    Both the groups you mention believed themselves to be at war, and had army structures where orders where given and obeyed.

    When the British army opened fire on Bloody Sunday no philosophy was going to convince anybody that it was anything other than a war.
    In effect, the reality trumps your argument imo.


    So what you are saying is the neither the British Army on Bloody Sunday nor the loyalist paramilitaries at any time ever committed murder. Am I getting you right?

    And you are saying all of this rubbish in order to justify the murder of Jean McConville.


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    #768
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Godge wrote: »
    You must be having a laugh. Come on, change one of the statements.

    You say you don't defend murder but you are defending the murder of Jean McConville.

    I have made a distinction between a killing in a combat situation and a 'murder'. There is a difference and it is why I asked you to make the distinction.
    I believe that in reality there was a war situation, based on how the different sides had structured military units.

    If she was an informer then she was a victim of a war/conflict. I don't know if she was an informer or not. I will await the outcome of the trial.

    Because of the conflict/war, comparisons with domestic killings, like Nicole Simpson are ridiculous, and really don't warrant discussion as they are obviously being used as part of a different agenda.

    the above does not mean that I don't see her death as tragic and sad, I see all deaths on both sides as tragic and sad.


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    #769
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Godge wrote: »
    So what you are saying is the neither the British Army on Bloody Sunday nor the loyalist paramilitaries at any time ever committed murder. Am I getting you right?

    And you are saying all of this rubbish in order to justify the murder of Jean McConville.

    No, absolutely not. I HAVE said that if it turns out that this killing was for some other reason, like somebody getting their kicks from it then it should be treated as 'murder' and the perpetrator should be sent down for the rest of their life.
    In a war situation an 'informer' is an enemy combatant.
    An innocent person marching for their rights is not.


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    #770
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    Only 4% of loyalist killings were Republicans despite being supplied with intelligence and killers by the UDR and RUC. See: Glenane Gang.

    My parents were injured and very nearly killed by the Glenanne Gang. I really don't need you tell me about them. That still leaves the Provos as the most culpable for murder within the conflict - as I keep pointing out, and you can't bring yourself to admit. Deal with the facts.


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    #771
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    I have made a distinction between a killing in a combat situation and a 'murder'. There is a difference and it is why I asked you to make the distinction.
    I believe that in reality there was a war situation, based on how the different sides had structured military units.

    If she was an informer then she was a victim of a war/conflict. I don't know if she was an informer or not. I will await the outcome of the trial.

    Because of the conflict/war, comparisons with domestic killings, like Nicole Simpson are ridiculous, and really don't warrant discussion as they are obviously being used as part of a different agenda.

    the above does not mean that I don't see her death as tragic and sad, I see all deaths on both sides as tragic and sad.

    So you are able to pretend to be pure and innocent and say that you never defend murder by defining murder in such a way as to exclude all of the sectarian killings in the North from Bloody Sunday to Jean McConville as not being murder.

    I have never met anyone else who has ever taken such a cold attitude to the taking of human life.

    Unless you are a sociopath, you must be a teenager with a romantic idealism of war who has no experience of what happened in the North and is relying for their information on second-hand maudlin or romantic stories of the conflict. The rest of us had to stand strong against the murderers and terrorists on both sides to ensure that you live in peace today.


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    #772
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Godge wrote: »
    So you are able to pretend to be pure and innocent and say that you never defend murder by defining murder in such a way as to exclude all of the sectarian killings in the North from Bloody Sunday to Jean McConville as not being murder.

    Please show me where I have defended 'sectarian' killings.


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    #773
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    No, absolutely not. I HAVE said that if it turns out that this killing was for some other reason, like somebody getting their kicks from it then it should be treated as 'murder' and the perpetrator should be sent down for the rest of their life.
    In a war situation an 'informer' is an enemy combatant.
    An innocent person marching for their rights is not.

    More dancing on the head of a pin. How about if those protestors were passing on info to the Derry IRA about the movement of the soldiers? Throwing stones at the troops? Helping those throwing stones at the troops? How about if that was the 'belief' of the Paras on the day? It was a 'war' situation, as you claim, after all. Or could it be that you've simply dug yourself into a farcical game of evasion that labels a Jean McConville an 'enemy combatant'? Disgusting.


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    #774
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    alastair wrote: »
    More dancing on the head of a pin. How about if those protestors were passing on info to the Derry IRA about the movement of the soldiers? Throwing stones at the troops? Helping those throwing stones at the troops? How about if that was the 'belief' of the Paras on the day? It was a 'war' situation, as you claim, after all. Or could it be that you've simply dug yourself into a farcical game of evasion that labels a Jean McConville an 'enemy combatant'? Disgusting.

    Is an 'informer' an enemy combatant or not?


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    #775
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Please show me where I have defended 'sectarian' killings.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    If it is a case of an informer being dealt with, then it is 'defensible', in my opinion.


    Would you ever give up, you are getting close to being reported.


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    #776
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Godge wrote: »
    Would you ever give up, you are getting close to being reported.


    Why have you put those two quotes together? Dealing with an informer is not sectarian.


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    #777
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Is an 'informer' an enemy combatant or not?

    Of course not.

    Let's abandon any sense of reason for a moment and pretend that the Provos were a legitimate army in a war situation (they were not). If so they are still subject to the rule of law, under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions. Suspending belief in order to ascribe legitimacy on the IRA, turn the troubles into a war, and pretend that there's an ounce of evidence that McConville was passing on information to the British, it's still murder, just in that case, a war crime.

    But back to reality - it was common or garden murder, by a self-proclaimed and un-mandated bunch of goons, who knew better than to admit to their crime at the time, because of the response it would have had from their community.


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    #778
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Is an 'informer' an enemy combatant or not?
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Why have you put those two quotes together? Dealing with an informer is not sectarian.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    Please show me where I have defended 'sectarian' killings.
    Happyman42 wrote: »
    I have made a distinction between a killing in a combat situation and a 'murder'. There is a difference and it is why I asked you to make the distinction.
    I believe that in reality there was a war situation, based on how the different sides had structured military units.

    If she was an informer then she was a victim of a war/conflict. I don't know if she was an informer or not. I will await the outcome of the trial.

    Because of the conflict/war, comparisons with domestic killings, like Nicole Simpson are ridiculous, and really don't warrant discussion as they are obviously being used as part of a different agenda.

    the above does not mean that I don't see her death as tragic and sad, I see all deaths on both sides as tragic and sad.

    You are talking through both sides of your arse at this stage.




    Godge wrote: »

    I have never met anyone else who has ever taken such a cold attitude to the taking of human life.

    Unless you are a sociopath, you must be a teenager with a romantic idealism of war who has no experience of what happened in the North and is relying for their information on second-hand maudlin or romantic stories of the conflict. The rest of us had to stand strong against the murderers and terrorists on both sides to ensure that you live in peace today.

    You have never responded to this point so I take it in light of your continued sad attempts to justify killings and murder, you are one of the two.


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    #779
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Godge wrote: »
    You have never responded to this point so I take it in light of your continued sad attempts to justify killings and murder, you are one of the two.

    What I don't get is the doublethink employed with regard to the apologists for Jean McConvilles murder. There's no evidence for McConville being involved with the British at all. The only source for any claim made against her in that regard is Brendan Hughes - who Gerry Adams assures us, was a liar. If you believe Hughes, you also have to take him at his word that Adams ordered her murder. So you need to forgoe any legitimacy in the SF party leader, and presumably resign yourself to his trial/incarceration in order to buy into McConville's 'guilt'.


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    #780
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Godge wrote: »
    You are talking through both sides of your arse at this stage.

    Again, please explain how and then maybe I can help you.






    You have never responded to this point so I take it in light of your continued sad attempts to justify killings and murder, you are one of the two.

    I am neither and it wasn't worthy of a reply the first time around.


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    #781
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    alastair wrote: »
    What I don't get is the doublethink employed with regard to the apologists for Jean McConvilles murder. There's no evidence for McConville being involved with the British at all. The only source for any claim made against her in that regard is Brendan Hughes - who Gerry Adams assures us, was a liar. If you believe Hughes, you also have to take him at his word that Adams ordered her murder. So you need to forgoe any legitimacy in the SF party leader, and presumably resign yourself to his trial/incarceration in order to buy into McConville's 'guilt'.

    One side says she was an informer the other side says she wasn't.

    Why would you have to 'buy into Gerry Adams ordered her murder'? What a ridicuulous thing to say, the two statements have no connection nor does one follow from the other. That is like saying something like this is completely true because the first part is,

    'I believe it is going to rain, and that the world is flat'.
    You are firmly in the realm of the ridiculous now.


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