Crooked Jack wrote: » where is your evidence for this? You cant keep saying "most people" and not backing it up. Any time for who? The IRA? Sure they're gone. Or do you mean Sinn Fein, the biggest nationalist party in the north and the party that outpolled the DUP in both the European and Westminster elections?
Charlie Rock wrote: » You avoided answering my question. How about we condemn all violence against civilians including those who were beaten to death by the RUC and gunned down by the BA?
Manassas61 wrote: » I have already pointed out to you when they deliberately killed civilians and actually went out of their way to do it. The tullyvallen orange hall massacre. The kingsmill massacre in which they deliberately went and picked out Protestants. There is plenty of examples of them going around trying to kill Protestants or just civilians in general. I sometimes think a bit of rewriting of history is going on here.
You also clearly arent reading my posts, so I'll put it up for you here again. No doubt you an throw out the usual names of attacks in which civilians were killed but the numbers just dont support you. Conservative estimates say the IRA carried out well over 10,000 explosive attacks during the course of the conflict and countless shootings. This killed around 1800 people, around 2/3 of whom were combatants of one variety or another. Now, any civilian death is unacceptable, but the number of civilian deaths, measured against the numbers of combatants killed and more tellingly, the number of over all attacks, shows that the IRA did not "deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants."
Manassas61 wrote: » So lets do that and keep Northern Ireland moving forward.
Manassas61 wrote: » Most Nationalists at the time actually didn't agree with the PIRA death squads.
Manassas61 wrote: » Most normal people don't have any time for them now and want to move forward..
Crooked Jack wrote: » To cause maximum disruption. As as been pointed out numerous times, the IRA gained nothing from the deaths of civilians or inflicting terror in anyone other than british soldiers/RUC/other combatants, so why would they do it. Why would they give warnings. Why would the issue apologies and regrets afterwards? Why would they take actions against individual members or units who caused civilian deaths? Like I also said, I knew someone would come out listing off a few names to kick about like a political football but you've ignored the overall numbers, which counteract your claims about the IRA targeting civilians.
Painted Pony wrote: » Even if the provos had conducted their campaign in such a way that not a hair on an innocents person’s head was hurt, they were still wrong.
Fratton Fred wrote: » When they used napalm on the le Mon restaurant, why did they do it when both function rooms were full? When the IRA detonated bombs in Birmingham pubs, why did they do it on a Friday evening? Why was Warrington bombed on a Saturday lunchtime? Because on all three occasions, those places were at their busiest and because it would create the maximum amount of terror amongst the civilians there at the time.
Crooked Jack wrote: » The vast majority of people in Ireland carry loose ice cream in their pockets at all times. See, I can just say any old shite and apply it to "most people" as well. Doesn't make it true
Manassas61 wrote: » Well you are entitled to that view, most of Northern Ireland disagrees with it. The "Troubles" did not start in 1969. There has always been conflict in Ulster. But most normal people condemn PIRA murderous thugs.
Charlie Rock wrote: » Get involved? You mean caused. When is Unionism going to face up to the fact that it caused the troubles?
Manassas61 wrote: » No one said Unionism didn't get involved in violence.
Crooked Jack wrote: » Well, firstly you have to ask whose definition is that. Secondly, it certainly doesnt "sum up" the IRA, less still Sinn Fein. No doubt you an throw out the usual names of attacks in which civilians were killed but the numbers just dont support you. Conservative estimates say the IRA carried out well over 10,000 explosive attacks during the course of the conflict and countless shootings. This killed around 1800 people, around 2/3 of whom were combatants of one variety or another. Now, any civilian death is unacceptable, but the number of civilian deaths, measured against the numbers of combatants killed and more tellingly, the number of over all attacks, shows that the IRA did not "deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants." Now then, more generally, there isnt a charge in that definition that couldnt be applied to any regular army, particularly the brits or yanks, yet they dont consider each other terrorists, but have both breached all those conditions on numerous occasions. Therefore you can only infer from that that it is a word with no set meaning, just one they apply to people who shoot back at them. So which is it? The brits and yanks are terrorists too, or, for all intents and purposes, it's basically a word with no meaning.
Charlie Rock wrote: » Again we witness the mental gymnastics. Btw it was violent Loyalism and Unionism that gave rise to the backlash that were the PIRA. You need to look a lot closer to home to see where violence comes from in the north. Have a little look at this to see who was being terrorised back in the day.
SoulandForm wrote: » Giving away our natural gas resources to Shell and our fishing resources to Brussels are two major examples of this.
SoulandForm wrote: » My point is- that yes the Provos were brutal and often immoral
tdv123 wrote: » I think you'll find the nationalist community in the North would have been very welcome to some help from the Dublin government
Manassas61 wrote: » aggressive Republican ideology Like the PIRA ... seems to have come to a halt now.
Crooked Jack wrote: » Therefore you can only infer from that that it is a word with no set meaning, just one they apply to people who shoot back at them.
Godge wrote: » It is not a meaningless slur. "Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)" Just about sums up the SF/IRA axis.
Godge wrote: » those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)
Crooked Jack wrote: » A lot of it would indicate that the PIRA was an insurgency. That's using their own definitions of course. Personally I dont think "terrorist" or "terrorism" has any value as a word. It's a meaningless slur with no set definition except perhaps "an accusation applied to someone who uses violence and who you happen to disagree with."
Fratton Fred wrote: » Read it again.
Charlie Rock wrote: » Source: World's leading terrorist state.
Fratton Fred wrote: » Here you are, this might help with your obvious confusion.http://www.terrorism-research.com/insurgency/
The information found on this web site (Terrorism-Research.com) is provided for educational purposes only. It is derived from various US Government documents and open source/public domain material.http://www.terrorism-research.com/privacy.php
tdv123 wrote: » Guerrillas can't fight against a world power these days without being labelled unfairly a terrorist. It's just laziness from the gutter media
Ultimately, the difference between insurgency and terrorism comes down to the intent of the actor. Insurgency movements and guerilla forces can adhere to international norms regarding the law of war in achieving their goals, but terrorists are by definition conducting crimes under both civil and military legal codes. Terrorists routinely claim that were they to adhere to any "law of war" or accept any constraints on the scope of their violence, it would place them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the establishment. Since the nature of the terrorist mindset is absolutist, their goals are of paramount importance, and any limitations on a terrorist's means to prosecute the struggle are unacceptable.
Godge wrote: » you completely miss the point that the only people who wanted that so-called war, more appropriately titled a terrorist campaign, were a very small minority of people who refused to accept the will of the democratic majority on this island and engaged in that terrorist campaign.
The pretext used by London for dispatching troops to Northern Ireland concealed its real purpose. That agenda was to target the Nationalist population with state terrorism for political ends. Whereas in previous years, the Unionist paramilitaries could rely on the collusion of the local police force to terrorize, from 1969 onwards these forces had the full might of the British army to ramp up the violence against Nationalist civilians and thereby intimidate them from supporting political opposition to the British government’s presence in Ireland. The 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry was only one of several atrocities that the British troops perpetrated during that pivotal period of Northern Ireland’s conflict, ironically when they were supposedly there to protect civilians. The year before Bloody Sunday, in August 1971, British paratroopers shot dead 11 unarmed civilians in the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast. Among the dead was a 50-year-old woman, Joan Connolly, who had been standing peacefully on the street. Another victim was a priest, Fr. Hugh Mullan, who was shot dead while trying to assist a man wounded on the ground. On 9 July 1972 - six months after Bloody Sunday - British troops again shot dead five unarmed Nationalist civilians in another area of West Belfast, Springhill. Three of the victims were children, including 13-year-old Margaret Gargan, who was shot in the head by a British sniper as she was walking to her home. The two adults who died that day, Patrick Butler and Fr. Noel Fitzpatrick, were killed with the same bullet, it ripping through one man’s head into the other. One of the survivors of the Springhill massacre later told how, as he lay wounded, bullets were ricocheting off the ground near his head, fired by British soldiers who had taken up position in a nearby timber yard that overlooked the residential neighborhood.
SoulandForm wrote: » If the PIRA were as evil as he says they are how is it defaming someone to say that they informed on them?
tdv123 wrote: » I think you'll find the nationalist community in the North would have been very welcome to some help from the Dublin government or it's citizens & would have preferred their input much more than the IRA's. Obviously Dublin's foolproof plan of sitting around feeling outraged & criticizing from a safe distance didn't seem to be getting anywhere. So British soldiers are sent into the North what's Dublin's next move? Ah yes sit around & feel outraged for another 50 years, instead this time of feeling outraged by the state their outraged & criticizing the provisionals. If the nationalists in the North waited around for Dublin or the nationalists in the South to intervene there would probably be nothing left of them by now. The truth is the Free State couldn't give a sh** what happened to the citizens that they had a territorial claim over as they had just accepted Britain owned them so don't give me that righteous moral rhetoric bullsh**. The Free State is just as much to blame as the Loyalists, Provos & Brits for the mess for starting a war they were only half committed to & then leaving a minority on there own to fight for themselves. The Provos seen themselves as finishing the war the Free State had started, it's only obvious there not going to pay much attention to a state that sold them out in the first place.
