Anyone willing to admit that they supported the IRA at any point?

end of the road · 04-07-2018 12:57AM

robindch wrote: »

The IRA and their fellow terrorists took everybody's inbuilt pride in their country and perverted it into a chauvanistic nationalism which hated everybody else to the extent that they felt justified in murdering anybody they wanted to, including people who happened to be unlucky enough to get in the way:

http://www.thejournal.ie/bomb-arrest-armagh-3539301-Aug2017/
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/murdered-garda-jerry-mccabe-is-honoured-in-limerick-1.3547509
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Nick_Spanos_and_Stephen_Melrose
etc, etc, etc.

i would have to disagree with that assessment. the ira plan was to disable security forces (RUC and BA) and loyalist paramilitaries. their plan wasn't to kill civilians. however an element of the force unfortunately decided to go down that route and they are rightly condemned for it.
and yes the killings of the nun, the 2 australian tourists and our boy jerry mccabe were inexcusable.

robindch wrote: »

I can't help but wonder if you'd still be supporting terrorists and terrorist murder if one of your friends or family was blown to pieces by a bomb or a bullet from the IRA or the UVF or all the other terrorist gangs operating at the time.

if i was living in a country where i was discriminated against, treated as a second class citizen, and all else, then yes i would support any group which would over-throw those who were implementing that discrimination and treatment.

robindch wrote: »

They did not fight as soldiers. They fought from behind the civil society which protected them, from the far end of a ticking timer, from the crosshairs of sniper's sights.

i'd disagree, they faught the way they had to in the aim of eradicating the sectarian statelet and it's forces, something it achieved very effectively.

robindch wrote: »

Because they lacked the public support and the private bravery to stand up and fight as men, they instead fought as the cowards they were.

they had public support, and brought the BA to a stailmate. cowards wouldn't be able to do that.

04-07-2018 01:07AM

robindch wrote: »

Not sure where you got that bizarre idea from, but where I came from, we didn't shoot unarmed Australians on holiday in the Netherlands, we didn't blow nuns to smithereens, we didn't murder Gardai during bungled bank robberies in Adare, nor did we incinerate teenagers, children or pregnant women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankill_Road_bombing

Is there a point in here anywhere apart from a glaringly obvious piece of (very) selective moral outrage. What have you got against snipers btw? Most uniformed armies have a cadre of them. Is it ok when they have someone in their crosshairs?

Junkyard Tom · 04-07-2018 01:09AM

robindch wrote: »

Because they lacked the public support

What we have now is an experienced, professional enemy with enormous local support. They should never be underestimated

and the private bravery to stand up and fight as men, they instead fought as the cowards they were.

A senior military officer said [of the attack on Derryard checkpoint] ''They are murdering bastards, but they are not cowards. This team actually pressed home a ground attack right into the heart of the compound. That takes guts when there are people firing back.''

heraldscotland.com/news

end of the road · 04-07-2018 01:15AM

robindch wrote: »

Not sure where you got that bizarre idea from, but where I came from, we didn't shoot unarmed Australians on holiday in the Netherlands, we didn't blow nuns to smithereens, we didn't murder Gardai during bungled bank robberies in Adare, nor did we incinerate teenagers, children or pregnant women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankill_Road_bombing

the omagh bombing wasn't carried out by the provos. either way it was absolutely unnecessary and you won't find anyone condoning it;. shankill road was also regretible given it was civilians who suffered instead of the intended targets.

Dr Brown · 04-07-2018 01:19AM

Another reason I don't support "Republicans" anymore is because they have moved into drugs and racketeering.

04-07-2018 01:24AM

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

Targeting the military/ paramilitary only would have been ok but bombing town centres etc was never acceptable.

Does that also apply to British bombing - so-called "strategic bombing" - of town centres/economic targets and civilian areas of Berlin, Paris, Cologne, Hamburg, Kassel etc etc, or more recently the numerous civilian areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Al-Fallujah alone a single British bombing attack on a civilian area had 130 deaths - has any IRA targeting of a civilian area murdered 130 people?

Back in the glory days of "smart bombs" when the British and Americans targeted and murdered civilians at will they infamously described these deaths in every news bulletin as "collateral damage".

The Spectator: Hitler didn't start indiscriminate bombings — Churchill did (2013):

Up until Churchill’s appointment as prime minister both Germany and Britain had stuck to a pledge not to attack targets in each other’s cities where civilians were at risk. Overy dismisses the long-held belief ‘firmly rooted in the British public mind’ that Hitler initiated the trend for indiscriminate bombings. Instead, he says, the decision to take the gloves off was Churchill’s, ‘because of the crisis in the Battle of France, not because of German air raids [over Britain].’

Ethical restraints which had been imposed at the start of the war became slowly eroded as a result of Britain’s decision to initiate ‘unrestricted’ bombing of targets located in Germany’s urban areas. In a fascinating chapter entitled ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ Overy suggests that Britain’s Bomber Command developed its tactics for concentrated ‘area bombing’ and the wide use of incendiary bombs by observing the destruction Germany wrought on London during the Blitz.

The RAF altered its strategy of focusing on precise targets when it saw how effectively the German air force attacked clusters of targets in industrial and commercial areas. However, Overy says that under Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris’s stewardship Bomber Command took things a grisly step further by deliberately targeting German workers to reduce industrial output.

For much of the war, combined British, Commonwealth and American forces lacked the necessary technology to develop the long-range heavy bombers they needed to launch attacks on Germany’s main industrial hubs. The bombing war only really escalated in 1943 when Harris finally felt ready to launch three major offensives: the Ruhr-Rhineland in late spring and summer, Hamburg in July and Berlin in the autumn.

It was the second of these, codenamed ‘Operation Gomorrah’, that resulted in the single largest loss of civilian life in one city throughout the European war. Some 37,000 people died and over 60 per cent of Hamburg’s houses and apartments were destroyed by a blaze of incendiary bombs. Overy cites a German doctor who says he had to estimate the number of dead by measuring the ash left on the floor.

It was only near the end of the war, and the bombing of Dresden which killed approximately 25,000 people in a few hours, that there was any kind of outcry against Allied strategy, which incidentally had failed in any way to stem Germany’s production of armaments (there was a three-fold increase between 1941 and 1944). Yet after the war the British Bombing Survey Unit’s assessment was positively damning and criticised almost ‘all phases of Bomber Command’s activities except the final phase against oil and communications targets [in Germany].’

Though he is never quick to judge Overy does not disagree with postwar interpretations which saw ‘the final flourish of bombing against a weakened enemy, with overwhelming force, as merely punitive, neither necessary, nor, as a result, morally justified’.

weldoninhio · 04-07-2018 08:46AM

robindch wrote: »

They did not fight as soldiers. They fought from behind the civil society which protected them, from the far end of a ticking timer, from the crosshairs of sniper's sights.

Because they lacked the public support and the private bravery to stand up and fight as men, they instead fought as the cowards they were.

You are right. Why didn’t they stand and fight against these noble gents.

https://archive.org/stream/englishatrocitie00hughuoft/englishatrocitie00hughuoft_djvu.txt

Zebra3 · 04-07-2018 09:00AM

robindch wrote: »

The IRA and their fellow terrorists took everybody's inbuilt pride in their country and perverted it into a chauvanistic nationalism which hated everybody else to the extent that they felt justified in murdering anybody they wanted to, including people who happened to be unlucky enough to get in the way:

http://www.thejournal.ie/bomb-arrest-armagh-3539301-Aug2017/
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/murdered-garda-jerry-mccabe-is-honoured-in-limerick-1.3547509
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Nick_Spanos_and_Stephen_Melrose
etc, etc, etc.

I can't help but wonder if you'd still be supporting terrorists and terrorist murder if one of your friends or family was blown to pieces by a bomb or a bullet from the IRA or the UVF or all the other terrorist gangs operating at the time.They did not fight as soldiers. They fought from behind the civil society which protected them, from the far end of a ticking timer, from the crosshairs of sniper's sights.

Because they lacked the public support and the private bravery to stand up and fight as men, they instead fought as the cowards they were.

What’s your opinion on soldiers dropping bombs from planes on defenseless people below them?

umop episdn · 04-07-2018 09:30AM

Zebra3 wrote: »

What’s your opinion on soldiers dropping bombs from planes on defenseless people below them?

Same as someone being blindfolded and shot in the back of the head

bobbysands81 · 04-07-2018 09:40AM

robindch wrote: »

Not sure where you got that bizarre idea from, but where I came from, we didn't shoot unarmed Australians on holiday in the Netherlands, we didn't blow nuns to smithereens, we didn't murder Gardai during bungled bank robberies in Adare, nor did we incinerate teenagers, children or pregnant women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankill_Road_bombing

Did you shoot dead an innocent child going down to fetch a pint of milk? Did you shoot a young man crossing the border to watch a GAA match? Did you plant 4 car bombs in a city and a town in the same day killing 34 innocent civilians? Did you shoot dead 14 protestors at a Civil Rights march? Did you take away the liberty of thousands of innocent people flinging them into jail for no reason other than they were part of the minority? Did you take part in the systematic torture of unknown amounts of people? Did you collude with loyalist forces to savagely murder scores of innocent people, including children?

bobbysands81 · 04-07-2018 09:41AM

Dr Brown wrote: »

Another reason I don't support "Republicans" anymore is because they have moved into drugs and racketeering.

No they haven’t.

Any group peddling drugs is not a Republican group.

FTA69 · 04-07-2018 10:01AM

bobbysands81 wrote: »

No they haven’t.

Any group peddling drugs is not a Republican group.

Some of the current armed groups have had peripheral connections to the drugs trade i.e. extorting drug dealers for money and sheltering heroin dealers on their wing in Portlaoise. The whole current crop of armed groups are a disgrace and poisoning any prospect of a political Republicanism outside of SF.

FrancieBrady · 04-07-2018 10:07AM

The 'drug peddling' thing is just a crutch so that unionists and partitionists do not have to engage with a group who have demonstratively engaged fully with the peace process.

Drugs are peddled the world over. No more so in northern Ireland than anywhere else.

umop episdn · 04-07-2018 10:12AM

This thread has just become a self fulfilling prophecy, quelle surprise!

FTA69 · 04-07-2018 10:18AM

robindch wrote: »

Not sure where you got that bizarre idea from, but where I came from, we didn't shoot unarmed Australians on holiday in the Netherlands, we didn't blow nuns to smithereens, we didn't murder Gardai during bungled bank robberies in Adare, nor did we incinerate teenagers, children or pregnant women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankill_Road_bombing

Where did you come from?

archer22 · 04-07-2018 10:31AM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

What would you regard as an appropriate response to the government banning peaceful protests, and the army and police force engaging in gratuitous violence for the sole purpose of preventing the aforementioned protests from taking place?

If you have an answer which does not inevitably lead to using physical force to hit back against those two organisations, honestly I'm all ears.

Except that you are forgetting that most of the time those protests were not "peaceful" and most of the time the Police and Army did not react to the provocation but just stood there and took the showers of bricks and petrol bombs and iron bars being skimmed down the road to try and hit them under their shields.
Their discipline and restraint vast majority of the time was remarkable...given that those showers of bricks,petrol bombs and iron bars were designed to provoke a violent response from them...to create more martyrs for the cause!!
The frustration many soldiers felt at their rules of 'engagement' were overpowering and a lot did not re enlist when their contracts were up...they were trained to fight not to stand there every day and be punchbags for half savages.

Annd9 · 04-07-2018 10:41AM

archer22 wrote: »

they were trained to fight not to stand there every day and be punchbags for half savages.

Only half savages ? Glad to see your honest opinion of nationalist''s come out

FrancieBrady · 04-07-2018 11:21AM

archer22 wrote: »

Except that you are forgetting that most of the time those protests were not "peaceful" and most of the time the Police and Army did not react to the provocation but just stood there and took the showers of bricks and petrol bombs and iron bars being skimmed down the road to try and hit them under their shields.
Their discipline and restraint vast majority of the time was remarkable...given that those showers of bricks,petrol bombs and iron bars were designed to provoke a violent response from them...to create more martyrs for the cause!!
The frustration many soldiers felt at their rules of 'engagement' were overpowering and a lot did not re enlist when their contracts were up...they were trained to fight not to stand there every day and be punchbags for half savages.

That all happened after the lid came off. After the savagery of Burntollet and other attacks on peaceful civil rights protests, culminating in the savagery of Bloody Sunday.

And the Army and RUC DID react at times.

Please know the factual history before making comment.

robindch · 04-07-2018 11:40AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Is there a point in here anywhere apart from a glaringly obvious piece of (very) selective moral outrage.

Yes, the OP asked who might have supported the IRA and I've indicated that I did not, and why I did not. The same reasoning, btw, applies equally to other paramilitary groups including loyalists so your allegation that I'm being selective is false.

end of the road wrote: »

i would have to disagree with that assessment. the ira plan was to disable security forces (RUC and BA) and loyalist paramilitaries. their plan wasn't to kill civilians.

And yet it happened again and again and again and again. There's a reason why there are ugly, but necessary, conventions to the conduct of war and the IRA and the opposing loyalist paramilitaries ignored many of them because they lacked the bravery, the numbers and the support to face their enemies head-on.

Zebra3 wrote: »

What’s your opinion on soldiers dropping bombs from planes on defenseless people below them?

As umop episdn said above, no different to my opinion of individuals who blindfold people and shoot them in the back of the head, or who plant bombs which incinerate children and so on.

04-07-2018 11:58AM

robindch wrote: »

Yes, the OP asked who might have supported the IRA and I've indicated that I did not, and why I did not. The same reasoning, btw, applies equally to other paramilitary groups including loyalists so your allegation that I'm being selective is false.

Ah, the thread 'restrictions' saved your argument. Point noted, well done. I'm still puzzled by your 'they did not fight like soldiers' remark. What did you expect them to do, match out into the middle of a field and challenge the BA to a battle or what? Your either being innocently naive as regards to the conduct of warfare here or, alternatively, perhaps maybe on a wind up exercise.

FrancieBrady · 04-07-2018 12:06PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Ah, the thread 'restrictions' saved your argument. Point noted, well done. I'm still puzzled by your 'they did not fight like soldiers' remark. What did you expect them to do, match out into the middle of a field and challenge the BA to a battle or what? Your either being innocently naive as regards to the conduct of warfare here or, alternatively, perhaps maybe on a wind up exercise.

Is colluding with one side in a conflict 'fighting like a soldier'?

:D

Taytoland · 04-07-2018 12:22PM

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

Targeting the military/ paramilitary only would have been ok but bombing town centres etc was never acceptable.

I don't know why they bombed some of the targets they did. Many of them made absolutely no sense even if you take the anti British view with them murdering "combatants". Still trying to figure out what the claudy bombing was all about. Martin Mcguinness never explained it.

archer22 · 04-07-2018 12:32PM

At the end of the day the security forces are the real unsung heroes...by the latter stages of the conflict they had both the republicans and loyalists so infiltrated that either side could rarely carry out a successful attack and even if they did they were quickly arrested.
The amount of lives and property those brave men and women saved is incalculable ...and it is work they quietly continue doing to this day.
Total anarchy and chaos would have been the order of the day without them...its thanks to them that civilisation now prevails.

hatrickpatrick · 04-07-2018 12:35PM

archer22 wrote: »

Except that you are forgetting that most of the time those protests were not "peaceful" and most of the time the Police and Army did not react to the provocation but just stood there and took the showers of bricks and petrol bombs and iron bars being skimmed down the road to try and hit them under their shields.
Their discipline and restraint vast majority of the time was remarkable...given that those showers of bricks,petrol bombs and iron bars were designed to provoke a violent response from them...to create more martyrs for the cause!!
The frustration many soldiers felt at their rules of 'engagement' were overpowering and a lot did not re enlist when their contracts were up...they were trained to fight not to stand there every day and be punchbags for half savages.

You've sidestepped my question entirely.

In 1968, the local government and the RUC banned the now-infamous protest march, which was supposed to be a peaceful protest, by the Derry civil rights campaigners. Violence only broke out at this protest when the protesters defied the ban, and the police reacted by physically attacking them.

Can you answer this specific question: If your demographic was the victim of systemic, concerted and deliberate discrimination by both the majority demographic and the government agencies which helped to enforce their wishes, and those government agencies subsequently used violence to prevent you from trying to resist the aforementioned oppression, what would you have advocated as a reasonable response? If you're opposed to violence against police who are behaving in an utterly corrupt and criminal manner, then that's a perfectly valid opinion - but "just put up with being discriminated against, and do nothing to try and change it" is not an acceptable answer to this question. If you oppose violent resistance, you have to suggest an equally effective alternative.

EDIT:

The protest was planned by the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) with the support of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). When the march was announced, the Apprentice Boys, a Protestant organisation, declared that they would hold a parade on the same day.
On 3 October 1968, the Stormont government banned all parades. The following day, all of the organisations behind the civil rights protest met and decided to go ahead with their parade. When the RUC blocked the intended route of the march and baton-charged the crowd, the television cameras were there and the images were shown around the world. The civil rights march in Derry on 05 October 1968 is often cited as the start of “the Troubles”.

So answer the question - what would you have done? I suppose you're going to tell us that breaking the law to engage in a "banned" protest is wrong and "provocation" ("banned" in quotes because I don't believe that a civilised government can "ban" a protest to begin with), so again what would your alternative proposal be?

FrancieBrady · 04-07-2018 12:40PM

archer22 wrote: »

At the end of the day the security forces are the real unsung heroes...by the latter stages of the conflict they had both the republicans and loyalists so infiltrated that either side could rarely carry out a successful attack and even if they did they were quickly arrested.
The amount of lives and property those brave men and women saved is incalculable ...and it is work they quietly continue doing to this day.
Total anarchy and chaos would have been the order of the day without them...its thanks to them that civilisation now prevails.

Unsung? Some of them were honoured and finished their careers despite being involved in acts that the British government subsequently abjectly apologised for.

DONTMATTER · 04-07-2018 12:52PM

archer22 wrote: »

At the end of the day the security forces are the real unsung heroes...by the latter stages of the conflict they had both the republicans and loyalists so infiltrated that either side could rarely carry out a successful attack and even if they did they were quickly arrested.
The amount of lives and property those brave men and women saved is incalculable ...and it is work they quietly continue doing to this day.
Total anarchy and chaos would have been the order of the day without them...its thanks to them that civilisation now prevails.

Why didn't they stop the Omagh bomb?

archer22 · 04-07-2018 12:56PM

DONTMATTER wrote: »

Why didn't they stop the Omagh bomb?

Why did republicans carry it out?

DONTMATTER · 04-07-2018 12:59PM

archer22 wrote: »

Why did republicans carry it out?

It was a disgusting mass murder, I think they were trying to make a statement that the war wasn't over.

Now why didn't the security forces stop it? They had infiltrated all sides, the were following the vehicle, they knew about it, why didn't they stop it?

archer22 · 04-07-2018 01:14PM

DONTMATTER wrote: »

It was a disgusting mass murder, I think they were trying to make a statement that the war wasn't over.

Now why didn't the security forces stop it? They had infiltrated all sides, the were following the vehicle, they knew about it, why didn't they stop it?

There are always going to be some that get through the net...but trying to put the blame for that atrocity on the security forces is a bit much.
I don't think if those terrorists defence in court was "its not our fault they should have stopped us"that that defence would have stood up!!.

The blame belongs solely where it lies

DONTMATTER · 04-07-2018 01:18PM

archer22 wrote: »

There are always going to be some that get through the net...but trying to put the blame for that atrocity on the security forces is a bit much.
I don't think if those terrorists defence in court was "its not our fault they should have stopped us"that that defence would have stood up!!.

The blame belongs solely where it lies

I told you the reason that the scumbags who carried it out had for doing it. Where did I put the blame on the security forces? I'm just wondering why they didn't stop it and what was their reason for not stopping it?

They knew about it, they could have stopped it but didn't.

Anyone willing to admit that they supported the IRA at any point?

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