Why I'll say no to a united ireland

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185094#Comment_122185094

Could a soldier be guilty of murder?
Yes.
Do I think this specific soldier is?

I don't know, I want to see a proper investigation as I would where anyone dies in this way. Then I can form an opinion. You might think you know but you don't, your bias is affecting your view. You wouldn't be fit for jury service nor should you serve on a jury.

When you have a track record of whitewash, cover-up and lying, don't bring the words 'professional' or 'honourable' into it. Your actions rule that conclusion out, no matter how many served.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185119#Comment_122185119

you are ducking it again. I think everyone can see what you were implying by bringing this case up. Give us your best guess? - my guess is that he did not intend to kill the little girl.

But now that you are into ‘proper investigations’, will you accept the fact the judge said that the soldier did not mean to fire the shot which killed Aidan mcanespie, and that he was killed by a bullet that ricochet of a road surface?

It was you brought it up to demonstrate army murders, and it’s you that says you like proper investigations, surely you will have no problem unequivocally stating that this was not an intentional killing or murder?

It will do you good to admit you are wrong when the evidence is presented so clearly

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185359#Comment_122185359

You are trying to divert the issue, which is nothing to do with a soldier's intent.

It is, YOUR governments and YOUR security forces repeated and long standing, dis-honourable covering-up, whitewashing and lies around these many cases.

Is that done on purpose? Is it intentional? What else could it be, when it comes to their own selfish interests they have and will shaft your 'loyal' community too.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185399#Comment_122185399

You are ducking it again and trying to divert away, now that you have been proved wrong YET AGAIN. It was YOU who brought up Aidan McAnespie's death. Out of many incidents in the troubles, over many decades, that is the best you can come up with? In post no. 9593 it was YOU who wrote, and I quote "The army and the RUC said that Aidan McAnespie's death was accidental, following years of campaigning for a proper investigation that too was found to be a cover-up and tissue of lies."

It turns out, as Downcow said " the judge said that the soldier did not mean to fire the shot which killed Aidan McAnespie, and that he was killed by a bullet that ricochet of a road surface ."

Given that the security forces are on high alert for a few decades, as they were, facing terrorist type attacks from people in plain clothes on an almost daily basis, and with 19,000 bombs having been exploded by Republicans, not to mention many sniper attacks, gun ambushes, kidnappings, disappearances etc……you many think it impossible there could have been an accidental discharge of a weapon, and a ricochet shot killing someone. I think in the real world these things can and do happen, but the young rookie soldier did not mean to kill the person with the ricochet shot. This was not an intentional killing or murder.

Contrast that to thousands of attacks by para-militaries, which were planned and where the intention very much was to kill. We know you never condemned the IRA, but what do you think of the IRA coldly blowing up Mountbatten's boat when they could see a young teenage boy and other civilians on it? Oh, you are like Adams, you are not in the politics of condemnation but the condemn all violence (while you mutter under your breath the attack on Mountbatten's fishing boat was a military attack, there are causulties in war etc )

If it was a war, surely you should accept the para-militaries committed many many war crimes? No uniforms, bombing of civilians, not acting on behalf of any state or government, disappearances, no records kept ( not even of the disappeared) etc.

The worst you can find by the British is the accidental shooting of Aidan McA, and Bloody Sunday.

And you expect all the enquiries to be on nationalists that were killed…even though 60% of the victims in the troubles were killed by Republicans? And you expect Republicans to tell the truth about every aspect of every incident that happened 45 or 50 years ago, when a very well know Republican leader himself will not even tell the truth about if he was in the IRA or not?

You could not make it up.

Another reason I would not vote for a U.I. And more and more Irish people seem to be copping on too : I see SF is down another 4% in the latest poll this weekend.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185359#Comment_122185359

I agree with you, it would do FrancieBrady good to admit he is wrong when the evidence is presented so clearly, but he will continue to divert and gripe about the security forces.

I honestly wonder if he is the type that would not only sue a paramedic that broke someone's ribs saving their life, but would he attack them because of some other reason too.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186857#Comment_122186857

The issue is not how these people died, they may have been deliberately killed or accidently killed. It is the evasion, the covering up, the white washing and the lies indulged by what you will insist are honourable professional forces and a government that has any sense of justice or indeed care.

Repeated ad nauseum through British history.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186900#Comment_122186900

We still await information on innocent people disappeared by nationalist terrorists.

There is plenty evasion and cover ups to go around, wouldn’t you think?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186938#Comment_122186938

Appalling, holding the state to the same standards as a paramilitary group.

It’s your failure to hold those with power properly responsible that will keep Unionism on the wrong side of history.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186900#Comment_122186900

Can you really nit pick cases ( to suit yourself of course, of course ) from 40 or 50 years ago, when there was no CCTV , DNA, mobile phone technology etc, and find out what happened? And as I asked you already, can we expect Republicans to tell the truth about every aspect of every incident that happened 45 or 50 years ago, when a very well know Republican leader himself will not even tell the truth about if he was in the IRA or not? Even the dogs in the street know he was. Was not his own driver / minder an informer, one of many.

And why are you always so concerned about what happened in a neighbouring jurisdiction, when for example a few years ago it was published 228 people have died in this state in or following Garda custody since 2007?

https://www.joe.ie/news/deaths-in-garda-custody-751828

And if you want to go back further, has the identities of the hundreds of babies found buried in the septic tank of the mother and child home ever been found. Those dead babies almost certainly have siblings still alive. Why not an investigation there…or even proper exhumation and decent Christian burial of the remains. Who knows what else they would recover. Shameful.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/25/a-stain-on-irelands-conscience-tuam-home-for-unmarried-mothers-gives-up-grimmest-of-buried-secrets

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/06/04/every-little-bone-the-difficult-exhumation-ahead-at-tuams-former-mother-and-baby-home/

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187018#Comment_122187018

There was a film crew recording in the street were one victim died. It showed the security forces lied through their teeth about a riot. There wasn’t one.
Family are STILL looking for a proper inquiry.
Now you want to stop people looking too closely at British behaviour. Isn’t that so typical. Deflect away at every oppurtunity with the nauseating ‘sure others did it, why can’t the British’.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187012#Comment_122187012

I am equally disdainful of all sides up there, that is why I will note No. I am appalled that you think disappearing innocents is not at least not as bad as the accidental shooting of the victim you keep referencing. The IRA planned, abducted, and disappeared amongst other Jean McConville and Columba McVeigh, is that any less immoral?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187071#Comment_122187071

I did not make comparisons. Don’t invent.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187079#Comment_122187079

You literally did in the first line of your post I quoted, you compared them, and said they shouldn’t be held to the same standards, I disagree, they are both to blame for atrocities, there are no innocent hands up there when it comes to evasion and cover ups.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187102#Comment_122187102

That’s a comparison to what the IRA did????

Look, divert like Francis and downcow if you want. Don’t lie about what I did, I did not compare what the British did to what paramilitaries did or what other governments did.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187116#Comment_122187116

here is an atrocity which one government has agreed to hold an enquiry to and the other one hasn’t. Maybe you should get more animated about the beam in your own eye.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66539396

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187287#Comment_122187287

So if it is wrong for the Irish what are the litany of cover-ups, whitewashing and lies of the British government when it came to the actions of its OWN security forces?

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187312#Comment_122187312

That point being made is that there was cover ups, whitewashing and lies on all sides, no one has clean hands.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187361#Comment_122187361

The British were primarily responsible for society in NI.
By siding with what they knew was a sectarian statelet they allowed it combust. They had the power at any time to create the society the GFA created.

They are still running from failing that responsibility. Others have blame too but that never excuses the British here.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187012#Comment_122187012

What is appalling and galling is holding said paramilitary groups in higher regard and standing when their stated intention was random murder.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187393#Comment_122187393

Who is doing that though?

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187410#Comment_122187410

Again, you are.

Francie, you have a Trumpian way of posting, with alternative facts, ignoring anything which offers an alternative reality to yours. It’s out of the SF/IRA playbook, we have right on our side, everyone else is wrong. But the fact is, again, no side has clean hands. And again, the probable costs involved don’t offset the benefits of absorbing this type of trouble into our State.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187442#Comment_122187442

I never claimed they did.
Stop inventing stuff Dav.
And you are of course correct, the British were a ‘side’ and combatants for a side.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187465#Comment_122187465

“Appalling, holding the state to the same standards as a paramilitary group”

That is what you posted.

You are appalled that a paramilitary group that plants a bomb, blowing up innocent kids in a bar, disappears innocent people who could never be considered by any stretch of the imagination as combatants, and murders serving Gardai etc, could be held to the same standards as a State.

Own what you post.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187410#Comment_122187410

You are. Every intentional murderer has gotten away with no questions to answer under the GFA, yet you think that state forces should still be answerable for their crimes? They should be treated equally, not doing so is applying different standards.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187478#Comment_122187478

What?

I am appalled that anyone would hold a state to just the standards of a paramilitary group and not to a higher standard. It cannot be excused by pointing somewhere else.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187497#Comment_122187497

You are making a comparison?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187485#Comment_122187485

That was the agreement. Do you know who agreed it between them?
Where does the GFA state that government shoukd be absolved of wrongdoing, or blame?
Are the IRA, UDA and tge rest absolved of their share of the blame, no of course they aren’t

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187499#Comment_122187499

Not between paramilitaries and government. That’s nonsense. I am saying they can never and should never be compared.
Again: I am appalled that somebody is holding a state to the same standards as a paramilitary group.
They are doing that because the British operated as a combatant for a side of the conflict here - their side.

Miniegg

I dip in and out but haven't seen one poster try to excuse murders committed by the IRA, though I may be wrong.

Asking people who call out British state murder and coverups in NI to somehow apologize for what the IRA did is a complete and utter false equivalence. It straight away attempts to take the legitimacy of the criticism of the British Army conduct here by painting the person as a frothing at the mouth violent republican, which is either a dirty trick or extremely stupid

The IRA were a terrorist organization who, had a job to commit terror - bombs, murder, kidnapping, etc etc. that is what terrorists do.

The British armies job was not to murder it's own people. I have no idea about Aidan Mcinespie, but Ballymurphy is an example of the violent British army regiment sent to a civilian neighborhood of British citizens, and given free reign to murder people going about their lives.

The soldiers who served in this regiment have never been held to account, and were in fact rewarded for the acts they carried out.
This same regiment commited Bloody Sunday a few days later. The British have changed their laws to avoid prosecuting the soldiers who killed these people, legitimizing their actions and those who covered it up.

The only people who I see excusing murders during the troubles are Downcow and FrancisMcm. Their reasons for defending BA murders are numerous, intelligent and diverse:

-Everyone else does it.
-Children who were killed may have been planting bombs

-they knew people in the security forces who were sound
-The IRA shot first (in relation to Bloody Sunday)- even though soldiers from the para regiment admitted lying
-The British don't murder because they are the most professional army in the world.
-The BA weren't so bad because they didn't murder more people.
-We should be thankful Belgium weren't in charge here after what they did in the Congo.
-The IRA set 190,000 bombs, the British set way less, so ignore any murders.
-collusion was fine, because law enforcement needs moles on the inside (forgetting that collusion was carried out exclusively with loyalist terror groups to injure or kill Nationalists or Catholics)

You should be able to criticize this shameful conduct without having to atone for the IRA. There is only one group of posters on here saying that not everyone were c*nts.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122187525#Comment_122187525

Was Jean McConville a combatant for the British State? Was Gerry McCabe?

Again, for the umpteenth time, none of the sides in NI are blameless, the British army who killed people, the nationalist and unionist paramilitaries who also commited atrocities, my viewpoint is leave them to it, I don’t want to have to pay to try and keep these people happy, knowing that as much as one side hates being part of the UK, the other side will hate being part of a United ireland. Let’s just leave things the way they are, we have enough problems of our own without adding this to them.