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Terrorists, Freedom Fighters, Paramilitaries, Insurgents, Rebels, Extemists, Guerilla

24

Comments

  • #32
    everdead.ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,153 ✭✭✭everdead.ie


    Terrorists are loosers and Freedom fighters are winners no?


  • #33
    CakeWalk
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3 ✭CakeWalk


    Banjo String wrote: »
    One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

    One man's state forces are another mans terrorists.


  • #34
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    Lawlesz wrote: »
    You have pretty much undermined your point by claming Northern Ireland was a democracy pre 1969

    Wrong.

    Northern Ireland WAS a democracy pre-1969.

    The majority of people in Northern Ireland have voted for pro-Unionist parties consistently since the foundation of the Northern state to the present in election after election after election.

    Don't take my word it:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Northern_Ireland

    The PIRA objective was to force the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland and to force the Unionist majority in the six counties to join a United Ireland.

    In the Republic of Ireland since 1922 no Irish republican party that favored forcing the Unionist majority into a United Ireland has ever been elected into the government.

    Don't take my word for it:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

    Therefore the PIRA WERE a wholly anti-democratic movement who substituted violence - the killing of politicians, members of the security forces and civilians - for democratic parliamentary politics and held the wishes of the majority of the people of Ireland north and south of the border in arrogant contempt.

    By definition they were terrorists.

    End of.


  • #35
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,566 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    CakeWalk wrote: »
    One man's state forces are another mans terrorists.

    One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

    And round it goes.


  • #36
    Cienciano
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,208 ✭✭✭✭Cienciano


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    In the news media, 'terrorist' means "anyone the US labels as a terrorist".

    There is no more consistent definition than that, in use by news media, because if there was it would be impossible to apply consistently, without concluding that the US engages in many 'terrorist' actions on a regular, industrialized basis.

    And the thing is, with the US history we can see it openly, but the media continue to go along with it.


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  • #37
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    Wrong.

    Northern Ireland WAS a democracy pre-1969.

    .

    Yep. Sort of like South Africa was at the time. Not everyone got to vote, and when they did it was made sure it had the minimum impact.


  • #38
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Nodin wrote: »
    Yep. Sort of like South Africa was at the time. Not everyone got to vote, and when they did it was made sure it had the minimum impact.

    Not to mention the fact that Ireland in 1919 was also a democracy and the Brits were actually so benevolent we were over represented in Westminster with a whopping 105 seats. (That is until those bloody terrorists in the IRA upstaged the democratic process by shooting the cops.)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Brit


  • #39
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Nodin wrote: »
    Yep. Sort of like South Africa was at the time. Not everyone got to vote, and when they did it was made sure it had the minimum impact.
    You make it sound like the government of NI had no sort of Judicial system it had to work within.
    FTA69 wrote: »
    Not to mention the fact that Ireland in 1919 was also a democracy and the Brits were actually so benevolent we were over represented in Westminster with a whopping 105 seats. (That is until those bloody terrorists in the IRA upstaged the democratic process by shooting the cops.)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Brit
    What are you even talking about?


  • #40
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    You make it sound like the government of NI had no sort of Judicial system it had to work within.

    Considering the sectarian hole it was in 1969, it's clear that they had a very particular judicial system indeed.


  • #41
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    You make it sound like the government of NI had no sort of Judicial system it had to work within.

    A great system it was and all, one that interned its own citizens for years without trial and was then indicted by Europe for torturing its captives. The same judicial system then later presided over a system of non-jury trials where people received life-sentences based on verbal confessions extracted via torture in Castlereagh.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/oct/11/inside-castlereagh-confessions-torture

    Spare us your double standards.


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  • #42
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »


    What are you even talking about?

    I'm talking about the person above telling us the IRA were unjustified due to the northern state being a "democracy".

    The same person then goes on to tell us that the IRA during the early 1920s were a great bunch of lads despite the fact they were also rebelling in the context of a "democracy". Ireland in 1918 was an integral part of the United Kingdom and was afforded 105 seats within Westminster.

    You could try and read up on this stuff for yourself like.


  • #43
    sue_me
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16 ✭sue_me


    Banjo String wrote: »
    One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

    absolutely

    the word " terrorist " is at best subjective and at worst a completely loaded term


  • #44
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Nodin wrote: »
    Considering the sectarian hole it was in 1969, it's clear that they had a very particular judicial system indeed.
    It didn't have an independent judicial system. The Government had to work within the confines of the Supreme court of the United Kingdom. But look this is getting off topic. You just have to tone down the extreme rhetoric, it doesn't help your case one bit.


  • #45
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    It didn't have an independent judicial system. The Government had to work within the confines of the Supreme court of the United Kingdom. But look this is getting off topic. You just have to tone down the extreme rhetoric, it doesn't help your case one bit.


    ....it managed to work quite well, if you consider a few decades of a sectarian statelet a "result". 'An avoidable tragedy' would be my description.


  • #46
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    FTA69 wrote: »
    A great system it was and all, one that interned its own citizens for years without trial and was then indicted by Europe for torturing its captives. The same judicial system then later presided over a system of non-jury trials where people received life-sentences based on verbal confessions extracted via torture in Castlereagh.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/oct/11/inside-castlereagh-confessions-torture

    Spare us your double standards.
    I love how Republicans claim the troubles was a war but moan about interrogation. And I'm the one with doubles standards? :rolleyes:


  • #47
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    IrishProd wrote: »
    Some people claim that Sinn Féin and the IRA during the Troubles had no political mandate so they are bad and are "terrorists". What political mandate did the Irish Volunteers in the 1916 Easter Rising have or Wolfe Tone & the United Irishmen in 1798?

    Firstly 1798.

    Since the Protestant Reformation and prior to its dissolution in 1800 the Irish Parliament was a parliament with a franchise limited to only a limited number of extremely wealthy aristocratic Anglo-Irish Protestant landowners.

    At that time the overwhelming majority of Irish people were Catholic poor and even wealthy educated Catholics were excluded from holding political office. Educated middle class Protestants were also excluded. Tone and his friends who formed the secret Society of the United Irishmen were the descendants of planters but inspired by the liberal egalitarian secular ideas of the American and French revolutionaries who believed in the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

    They believed Ireland should be a nation in its own right, a democratic Republic with Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter living in harmony and in freedom with justice and equality and liberty for all.
    That is why the 1798 rebellion was fought.
    To overthrow tyranny and replace with freedom.

    Therefore the men of 1798 were freedom fighters in the truest sense.

    Secondly 1916.

    Since 1829 when Catholics were first admitted to the House of Commons, Irish Nationalists had steadily grown in strength until the majority of the Irish seats in the House of Commons. The Irish Parliamentary Party pushed for Home Rule in 1886 and in 1893 but their bills were defeated each time. In the 1910 election the IPP again won a massive majority in Ireland except for the north east which was dominated by the Unionists. The Liberal government needed the support of the IPP and return the IPP won Liberal support for the 3rd Home Rule Bill which passed the final hurdles in 1914 the culmination of 30 years of constitutional democratic politics.

    The Unionists threatened rebellion and the British Army threatened mutiny while the Conservative Party in England openly sided with the Unionists.
    Home Rule was suspended for the duration of World War I.
    The Irish National Volunteers split for the war with Redmond, the leader of the IPP, leading the INV into the war with the promise of Home Rule after the war.
    Redmond died in early 1918 after his brother perished in battle in 1917 and lost his seat to Eamon De Valera one of the few 1916 rebels leaders left alive.
    Patrick Pearse had supported Home Rule and his militant republicanism was inspired by yet another British betrayal.
    After 1916 the majority of young Irishmen who had not voted in the years since 1910 had turned on the IPP and they turned against the war and opposed conscription.
    It was the young who voted for Sinn Féin in 1918 and thereby gave legitimacy to the Easter Rising.
    Pearse had correctly predicted that a blood sacrifice was needed to inspire Irishmen to fight for their freedom against British tyranny which had made a mockery of democracy.
    When the British government sought to crush Dáil Éireann they made the War of Independence 1919-1921 inevitable.

    That is why the men of 1916 were freedom fighters in the truest sense.

    It is grotesque to call the of 1798 and 1916 terrorists.

    Just as it is grotesque to call the criminal mafia scum of the Provisional IRA "freedom fighters."


  • #48
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,305 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Banjo String wrote: »
    One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

    And just because somebody fervently believes in a cause doesn't necessarily make that cause just or right.

    I'd accept the IRA campaign was just and right to a certain extent, not as much as many Republicans, but I'd say it went on far too long, so much that it lost any higher moral ground over the occupying forces it was fighting, it became more and more like the very thing it opposed.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #49
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Nodin wrote: »
    ....it managed to work quite well, if you consider a few decades of a sectarian statelet a "result". 'An avoidable tragedy' would be my description.
    Sure there was hatred on but how much of it was reactionary? Both groups are as bad as each other.


  • #50
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    I love how Republicans claim the troubles was a war but moan about interrogation. And I'm the one with doubles standards? :rolleyes:

    No Republican expected anything else from the British really, however it does tend to rankle when one is abducted and tortured in their own country.

    Another hypocrisy is you attempting to trivialise police brutality and also banging on about how Nelson Mandela was a great man.

    Here's what happened a contemporary of Nelson's after such an interrogation:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko

    If you're going to be right-wing mate, at least have the fortitude to be consistent in your support for oppressive states.


  • #51
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    Sure there was hatred on but how much of it was reactionary? Both groups are as bad as each other.

    If the PIRA had won the Troubles they would have unleashed ethnic cleansing Yugoslavia style on the Protestant population of Northern Ireland and would have established a Soviet style dictatorship over the rest of the people with Gerry Adams as supreme leader and the IRA Army Council as his Politburo.


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  • #52
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    If the PIRA had won the Troubles they would have unleashed ethnic cleansing Yugoslavia style on the Protestant population of Northern Ireland and would have established a Soviet style dictatorship over the rest of the people with Gerry Adams as supreme leader and the IRA Army Council as his Politburo.
    Balaclava 1991? Seriously? You're too young to even remember the troubles.


  • #53
    NuckingFacker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,221 ✭✭✭NuckingFacker


    It doesn't matter who they are. Nowadays they're all "linked to Al-quaeda".

    That Al is some lad to go.


  • #54
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    If the PIRA had won the Troubles they would have unleashed ethnic cleansing Yugoslavia style on the Protestant population of Northern Ireland and would have established a Soviet style dictatorship over the rest of the people with Gerry Adams as supreme leader and the IRA Army Council as his Politburo.


    Kim Jung Adams as glorious leader....collective farms.....priests crucified ever 200 yards all the way from Dublin to Belfast......cannibalism in the streets...more cannibalism indoors....cannibal fastfood.....the sheeted dead gibbering in the streets.....then being eaten.


  • #55
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    Balaclava 1991? Seriously? You're too young to even remember the troubles.

    You don't know what age I am and even if I was too young to have experience the Troubles there is abundant documentary and historical evidence about the period for someone to know plenty about it. Now if you would please point out anything that is factually incorrect about I have written on this thread.


  • #56
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    FTA69 wrote: »
    No Republican expected anything else from the British really, however it does tend to rankle when one is abducted and tortured in their own country.

    Another hypocrisy is you attempting to trivialise police brutality and also banging on about how Nelson Mandela was a great man.

    Here's what happened a contemporary of Nelson's after such an interrogation:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko
    No one condones illegal physical interrogation but it's an unfortunate consequence of war that these methods will take place under trying times. It's more than a little hypocritical to claim you're fighting then complain when the enemy interrogates your "troops."
    FTA69 wrote: »
    If you're going to be right-wing mate, at least have the fortitude to be consistent in your support for oppressive states.
    This should be good. Define right wing. Was this man right wing?

    http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/most-cruel-leader-in-the-world-pol-pot.jpg


  • #57
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    You don't know what age I am and even if I was too young to have experience the Troubles there is abundant documentary and historical evidence about the period for someone to know plenty about it. Now if you would please point out anything that is factually incorrect about I have written on this thread.


    Wait there till I get a shovel.


  • #58
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    Nodin wrote: »
    Kim Jung Adams as glorious leader....collective farms.....priests crucified ever 200 yards all the way from Dublin to Belfast......cannibalism in the streets...more cannibalism indoors....cannibal fastfood.....the sheeted dead gibbering in the streets.....then being eaten.

    :confused:


  • #59
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,305 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    You don't know what age I am and even if I was too young to have experience the Troubles there is abundant documentary and historical evidence about the period for someone to know plenty about it. Now if you would please point out anything that is factually incorrect about I have written on this thread.

    There's nothing factually correct to disprove, it's just your opinion!

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #60
    Iwasfrozen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,250 ✭✭✭✭Iwasfrozen


    Balaclava1991 wrote: »
    You don't know what age I am and even if I was too young to have experience the Troubles there is abundant documentary and historical evidence about the period for someone to know plenty about it. Now if you would please point out anything that is factually incorrect about I have written on this thread.
    A part time historian, the definition of an armchair republican. You want me to point out where you were wrong well you only quoted one of my posts and that was satire.


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  • #61
    Balaclava1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Balaclava1991


    Iwasfrozen wrote: »
    A part time historian, the definition of an armchair republican. You want me to point out where you were wrong well you only quoted one of my posts and that was satire.

    What?


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