IRA statement

tomMK1

Wicknight wrote:

If a man stabs his wife cause his dinner is cold, and a stranger stabs a black girl on the train cause she is black, both have done exactly the same thing, but one is a domestic assault, the other is a race crime.
.

they are both criminals though.

Zombrex

tomMK1 wrote:

they are both criminals though.

Yes they are ... just like the actions of the British Army (offical (SAS) and unoffical (Bloody Sunday) are as immoral and unjustifable as the actions of the IRA (offical - Warington and unoffical - Northern Bank robbery) .. but they are not the same types of immoral actions ... just like a race crime isn't a domestic abuse case even if they both involve a stabbing.

The British Army has never had an offical (or unoffical on a wide scale) policy of carrying out terrorist acts, not necessarily because they are any better or worse than the IRA, but simply because they do not have to. It would be pointless for the BA to carry out terrorist actions. Just like the IRA has never had an offical policy of using nuclear weapons against the British! It would be pointless because the IRA would never have nuclear weapons.

The IRA have always had an offical policy of carrying out terrorist actions, simply because that is the only method open to them, they do not have the resources, man power, or ability to carry out wide scale opperations against the British Army.

To ignore the fact that they both carry out different styles of actions is to ignore the details of the last 30 years. They say the devil is in the details, and the motivations and actions of the BA and the IRA are some pretty big details. It is as important to look at why something happened, not simply what happened. To classify the why (ie call everything terrorism) based on the what (eg. a bombing) is to gloss over what actually happened in the North with retoric and dismissive name calling (ie. everyone is a terrorist)

People seem more interested in demonising the other side than actually looking at what happened, something that is even more important now if the IRA have actually given up arms.

gurramok

Wicknight wrote:

The British Army has never had an offical (or unoffical on a wide scale) policy of carrying out terrorist acts, not necessarily because they are any better or worse than the IRA, but simply because they do not have to. It would be pointless for the BA to carry out terrorist actions. Just like the IRA has never had an offical policy of using nuclear weapons against the British! It would be pointless because the IRA would never have nuclear weapons.

Hold on a minute, offical nor unofficial, an act of terror is to terrorize.

As i'm a civilian, if I was getting shot at by a uniformed soldier and i'm unarmed, I flee in terror from the bullets.
If that soldier is punished by law as carrying an unlawful act, he/she will be punished and the incident would be put down to individual unlawful acts and not in the namesake of the army that the individual belongs to.

On the other hand when you apply that situation to what happened up north,
unarmed people have been shot and killed by the army for just being there.

I'm not talking about IRA suspects, i'm talking about the few hundred civilians who have been murdered and yet the conviction rate within the army for unlawful acts is next to nil, was it less than 5 prosecutions?

Due to lack of convictions, it would seem that those acts were offically sanctioned, those acts were terror as the victims would have died horrible terror-filled deaths, its only terror by another name - state terror, official or unofficial.

oscarBravo

gurramok wrote:

Hold on a minute, offical nor unofficial, an act of terror is to terrorize.

...and yet again, an over-simplistic definition brings us back to earthquakes and tsunamis being acts of terrorism.

Mercury_Tilt

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rsynnott

supersheep wrote:

Are they civilians? Then your terrorist crusade isn't justifiable.

The IRA only blows up children that they know are members of terrorist organisations, then? Amazing; you learn something new every day. The object of the IRA attacks on civilians were terror; to believe otherwise is bizarre.

Mercury_Tilt

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rsynnott

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

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Warrington?

Mercury_Tilt

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rsynnott

They bombed civilian targets. There is no virtue in saying "Oh, I didn't know we were blowing up children; I thought we'd only be blowing up old ladies". Or anyone else, for that matter. Pure terror campaign.

supersheep

rsynnott wrote:

The IRA only blows up children that they know are members of terrorist organisations, then? Amazing; you learn something new every day. The object of the IRA attacks on civilians were terror; to believe otherwise is bizarre.

I never said the IRA's campaign was justifiable... I was saying that it would be IF they didn't attack civilians. But they did, therefore it is not justifiable.
Wicknight, the Paras sent in to the Bogside by their commanders - and their ROE would have been defined before. I think I remember reading that a British officer, possibly the Para's commander, saying that they should be taught a lesson (I may well be wrong). Sending a combat unit with no experience of police actions into such a situation will probably have deadly consequences. I would call that an officially sanctioned act designed to cause terror, and thus terrorism. I think there were incidents of terrorism by British soldiers (not British security, because I know that members of British security committed terrorist acts - albeit under the auspices of the UDA or similar rather than the UDR) during the Troubles. And that is going by your definition of terrorism as a violent act designed to bring about political change - admittedly I may be stretching the definition of political by using it to describe changes in IRA policy or attitudes.

supersheep

rsynnott wrote:

They bombed civilian targets. There is no virtue in saying "Oh, I didn't know we were blowing up children; I thought we'd only be blowing up old ladies". Or anyone else, for that matter. Pure terror campaign.

What about soldiers?
I agree with you. Blowing up civilians is unjustifiable as well as wrong.

rsynnott

supersheep wrote:

I never said the IRA's campaign was justifiable... I was saying that it would be IF they didn't attack civilians. But they did, therefore it is not justifiable.

Even if they managed to resist the temptation of exploding children, their bombing campaign would not be justifiable for the last couple of decades.

rsynnott

supersheep wrote:

What about soldiers?
I agree with you. Blowing up civilians is unjustifiable as well as wrong.

WHY were they blowing up soldiers (and realistically, for the most part, they seem to have concentrated on civilians)? Is that really a way to make things better?

oscarBravo

supersheep wrote:

What about soldiers?

What about them? You reckon it's OK to blow up soldiers? Maybe you should lob a mortar over the wall of your nearest army barracks - if you're arrested, you can explain that it's OK, that's what they're there for.

supersheep

oscarBravo wrote:

What about them? You reckon it's OK to blow up soldiers? Maybe you should lob a mortar over the wall of your nearest army barracks - if you're arrested, you can explain that it's OK, that's what they're there for.

In the context of a war or conflict, I believe soldiers are acceptable targets - after all, like you, they know the risks, they're trained, they can fight back, and they are the representatives of who you are fighting.

rsynnott wrote:

WHY were they blowing up soldiers (and realistically, for the most part, they seem to have concentrated on civilians)? Is that really a way to make things better?

I don't think so, but that's a question of tactics and not justifiability (is that a word?)

rsynnott

I think the argument being made is that catholic people are allegedly treated as inferiors by the NI government, and as the democratic process obviously never ever works in such situations, the only option is to blow up random people in the hope that this will somehow change things.

Now, maybe catholic people are disadvantaged there to a certain extent. I'm gay. Gay people don't have equal rights in Ireland, and our government likes to pretend it's interested in remedying this, then shrug it off with so much doublethink. However, I have never considered going out and blowing up Mary Coughlan or Michael McDowell, even though those people are opposed to granting of equal rights to gay people. I wouldn't even seriously consider blowing up (in)Justice Sean Gannon, who let two men off with suspended sentences for a homophobic murder; after all, it was only a filthy queer, they killed, right?

Violence is rarely the answer.

supersheep

rsynnott wrote:

I think the argument being made is that catholic people are allegedly treated as inferiors by the NI government, and as the democratic process obviously never ever works in such situations, the only option is to blow up random people in the hope that this will somehow change things.

Now, maybe catholic people are disadvantaged there to a certain extent. I'm gay. Gay people don't have equal rights in Ireland, and our government likes to pretend it's interested in remedying this, then shrug it off with so much doublethink. However, I have never considered going out and blowing up Mary Coughlan or Michael McDowell, even though those people are opposed to granting of equal rights to gay people. I wouldn't even seriously consider blowing up (in)Justice Sean Gannon, who let two men off with suspended sentences for a homophobic murder; after all, it was only a filthy queer, they killed, right?

Violence is rarely the answer.

Actually, I agree. Violence is rarely the answer. I'm just saying it is justifiable here. It might not be the best solution.
And, so long as you didn't attack civilians, killing in the pursuit of gay rights is just as justifiable.

rsynnott

supersheep wrote:

Actually, I agree. Violence is rarely the answer. I'm just saying it is justifiable here. It might not be the best solution.
And, so long as you didn't attack civilians, killing in the pursuit of gay rights is just as justifiable.

Don't be silly. It's justifiable in neither case.

supersheep

That's where you and I will have to agree to differ. I believe that violence in pursuit of a political goal is justifiable as long as it does not target civilians. That can include war, or a terrorist campaign. Now, I do not believe that it is right - there is a difference.

oscarBravo

How can something be wrong, but justifiable? Also, what non-civilians would you kill in the pursuit of gay rights?

MrPudding

oscarBravo wrote:

How can something be wrong, but justifiable? Also, what non-civilians would you kill in the pursuit of gay rights?

Straight people, obviously. You know people that don't follow your beliefs.

MrP

tomMK1

oscarBravo wrote:

...and yet again, an over-simplistic definition brings us back to earthquakes and tsunamis being acts of terrorism.

I can only assume, since its obvious natural disasters generally dont join armys, that you are purposely missing the point. Is this back to the strange theory that bad things are terrorism?

tomMK1

oscarBravo wrote:

How can something be wrong, but justifiable?

thats precisely what I wanted to know. for example, how can the british army when doing the same things as the IRA be justified if the IRA are terrorists.

oscarBravo

tomMK1 wrote:

I can only assume, since its obvious natural disasters generally dont join armys, that you are purposely missing the point.

Well spotted.

Is this back to the strange theory that bad things are terrorism?

No, it's trying to move away from the utterly insane theory that terrorism can be defined by a single criterion; said criterion being defined at will by whoever has a particular point to make.

oscarBravo

tomMK1 wrote:

thats precisely what I wanted to know. for example, how can the british army when doing the same things as the IRA be justified if the IRA are terrorists.

It depends on what you mean by "the same things". If, as I suspect, you mean "vaguely similar things involving different types of violence under different circumstances for utterly different reasons", then you might start to understand why they are perceived differently.

Zombrex

supersheep wrote:

In the context of a war or conflict, I believe soldiers are acceptable targets - after all, like you, they know the risks, they're trained, they can fight back, and they are the representatives of who you are fighting.

So off duty soldiers in a pub enjoying a pint, who have no critical importance to the British Army pressence in the North, and whos deaths will have no direct effect on the BA pressence in the North, are justifiable targets?? Why?

Simply being a soldier in the British Army means the IRA are justifed in blowing you up, along with your family and friends?

It is a war crime to target off duty soldiers ... what makes the IRA any different to that moral judgement?

Zombrex

supersheep wrote:

That's where you and I will have to agree to differ. I believe that violence in pursuit of a political goal is justifiable as long as it does not target civilians. That can include war, or a terrorist campaign. Now, I do not believe that it is right - there is a difference.

The IRA target civilians .... if you blow a bomb up in a pub to kill one soldier in there you are targetting civilians .. your aim might be to kill that one soldier, but you know you are also going to kill everyone else in the pub ... or put it another way, the IRA don't take any care not to kill civilans

tomMK1

oscarBravo wrote:

It depends on what you mean by "the same things". If, as I suspect, you mean "vaguely similar things involving different types of violence under different circumstances for utterly different reasons", then you might start to understand why they are perceived differently.

I mean shooting on sight, shooting to kill, not being taken to court over such things, terrorising people via insults, threats, physical manhandling, destroying property etc etc - so no, i dont mean "vaguely similar things involving different types of violence under different circumstances for utterly different reasons" .. i mean running about terrorising people, and killing people, inncocent civillians included. You tell me how thats different from your view of the IRA

tomMK1

Wicknight wrote:

So off duty soldiers in a pub enjoying a pint, who have no critical importance to the British Army pressence in the North, and whos deaths will have no direct effect on the BA pressence in the North, are justifiable targets?? Why?

maybe because it doesnt matter if a soldier if off duty or not? All soldiers are critical to the army. the theory probably was that if soldiers realised they might die, then they mightnt really want to go there