Painted Pony wrote: » There is a familiar approach here from those who criticise the IRA (in all its modern guises) which is to (understandably) focus on innocent victims (Enniskillen, Warrington etc.). There is also a less used line being pushed here, which is that the IRA were as bad as the loyalists. Unfortunately this plays right in to the hands of those who would defend the IRA. The latter point is plainly not true, the loyalist were much more abhorrent. As to the former argument, well they can credibly point out that when violence is utilised, by anyone, there is an inevitable likelihood that innocents will be killed. The focus should be on the willingness by republicans to use violence in the first place. Resorting to force is a very extreme course of action and anyone who does so should have considerable justification. The IRA’s purpose and their reason for using violence was political, to end the British “occupation” of Ireland, as they would put it. And certainly the vast majority of Irish nationalists agreed with this end but they made is abundantly clear that they did not favour violence means to bring this end about. But the IRA, with a blatant disregard of the very notion of what republicanism is about, decided that the Irish people didn’t really know what was best for them and they could be simply ignored. (Interestingly, while they engaged in this behaviour they simultaneously decried British imperialism!). There is a lot of debate about attitudes to republicans with some bizarre accounts for the distrust some of us have for them. But the oft repeated mantra from the troubles era of “not in my name” neatly explains the reason for this distrust.
Fratton Fred wrote: » The IRA carried out numerous cowardly attacks against civilians, members of the RUC, members of the UDR and members of the British army. The amount of times they actually engaged the BA in head on assaults was rare and if they did, and lost, then they cried shoot to kill and demanded an enquiry.
SoulandForm wrote: » I really dont understand the will of some people to make believe that the Provos were worse than actually were as if the troubles as they happened were not brutal and nasty enough.
tdv123 wrote: » The British Army didn't see them as cowards anyway.http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/calculating-professional-enemy-that-faces-kosb-1.598672
SoulandForm wrote: » Do they really?
A senior military officer said: "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.''
Charlie Rock wrote: » Huh? Edit: Got it. So we've arrived at the victim blaming now? How depressing.
Charlie Rock wrote: » Huh?
Manassas61 wrote: » Most people remember them as cowardly murderous thugs.
SoulandForm wrote: » I wonder should you add in sneaking regarding?
Charlie Rock wrote: » Despite your moving of the goalposts from '300 Orangemen' to a particular attack I have no problem condemning acts such as that. I recently told you that I suspected you'd spend a lot of your time on boards.ie engaging in moral equivocation and whataboutery - I'd like to add 'moving the goal posts' to the list.
Manassas61 wrote: » Against terrorists. They killed Gardai. Decent law abiding people doing a job.
Manassas61 wrote: » They went into an Orangehall and murdered 5 people spreading all over the place. Trying to paint some sort of honourable picture of them won't work.
Charlie Rock wrote: » I suspect not for being Orangemen. That requires you to suspend your reasoning faculties and ignore facts.
Manassas61 wrote: » 300 Orangemen murdered due to them.
I don't see any difference between them.
SoulandForm wrote: » The Gardai used torture against Republicans during the troubles. Come on.
SoulandForm wrote: » The pro-Union side in the low level was not the monolith that some Republicans would like to believe. For instance there was much more sympathy within the UDR for the Loyalists than there was within the RUC- and within the British Army proper regiements varied in their attitudes. Certainly some wanted to see Loyalists locked up. However that doesnt change the fact that they were being fed information and even being co-operated with (the killing of Vol Miriam Daly comes to mind) by elements within the "security forces". Okay lets take this argument- was the Kingsmill massacre okay than because the UVF were not wearing uniforms all the time?
Manassas61 wrote: » Not to mention the brutal treatment they dished out to decent Gardai officers. No honor at all.
Manassas61 wrote: » 300 Orangemen murdered due to them. They slaughtered people in the border region. I don't see any difference between them. Ruthless murderers. Most people don't see any honor in them.
Manassas61 wrote: » No, not if a lot of the targets are in houses which they regarded as safe houses. Considering there was thousands of Loyalist prisoners, they didn't have as much wide spread information.British soldiers wearing uniforms put the PIRA in a huge advantage target wise.
Charlie Rock wrote: » They had plenty of intelligence passed to them about Republicans. They still managed to rack up an appalling rate of killing of innocent people. Were the PIRA ruthless killers? Absolutely. Did they commit some vicious acts of brutality? Yes. Was the PIRA's campaign comparable to the Loyalist murder gangs' massacres of people in bars, bookies, places of work? Absolutely not. Had the PIRA engaged in a comparable campaign of mass-murder against Protestants there'd have been many thousands more dead innocent Protestants. Again, the moral equivocation and attempts to draw parallels require suspension of reason and denial of facts.
jeffery lebowski wrote: » Primarily concerned with Military targets?
Women and children in Enniskillen 1987, Kingsmills, Jean McConville, The targeting of sons of Protestant farmers along the border, a chip shop on the Shankill road........
SoulandForm wrote: » Crap-the Prime Minister of the UK admitted a large amount of what went on in the House of Commons recently. They had the information if they wanted to target PIRA members- that would have involved actual risk though wouldnt it have?
Manassas61 wrote: » Loyalists killing British soldiers was rare.
Manassas61 wrote: » The Loyalist paramilitaries aimed at civilians as they didn't have people in uniforms driving down the street like Republican paramilitaries had.
SoulandForm wrote: » Why ironically? Loyalists at the time wanted a repeat of the pogroms in the early 20s that followed the defeat of the war of independence in what had now become Northern Ireland. Given the world situation as it was and the increase of media the UK state decided that it simply couldnt allow that to happen. At that time the early 20s were in living memory- infact you could say that sitting back and allowing them to happen at that time was one of the major causes of the troubles later.
Manassas61 wrote: » Nowhere near as much information as people think. They certainly didn't get enough information on PIRA members.
Manassas61 wrote: » It would not have been any different if say the Irish Defence forces were in Northern Ireland and driving around Unionist areas. You would have had hundreds of deaths simply due to explosives and shootings, off duty shootings. One of the first deaths in the Troubles ironically of a British soldier came about from the Shankill.
