Bloody Sunday soldier to be charged with murder

Surely some of these Paratroopers are dead by now? This Soldier F guy would be in his 70s if he was in his 30s back then. This sounds like a classic case of "wait them out until they die, then wait out the families too" and bury them with cancelled tribunal dates until the world forgets.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Am I incorrect in thinking past incidents wouldn't be raked up?

There was supposed to be a process to deal with legacy issues.

janfebmar wrote: »

If one was investigated what do you say to those who think they should all be?
You have not answered the question if you think the murder of hundreds of soldiers and police, which mostly went unsolved, should be investigated fully? After all £200,000,000 was spent on Bloody Friday, so how much do you think should be budgeted for investigating many hundreds of other atrocities in the troubles. And do you think it would do any good?

I already said what I think should happen, what needs to happen.

It is nobody's fault but those who whitewashed and ran away from facing what happened that day, that it cost what it did.

janfebmar wrote: »

There were over 40,000 involved either being killed or injured. It is not feasible to give each one justice. As someone else said in reality that would mean indefinite enquiries, at huge cost, decades after the events, relying on witness testimony (something that is often unreliable even shortly after an event never mind decades), about perpetrators who are often dead so can't even by cross examined.

As pointed out before, enquiries that involve organisations like the IRA and British Army are likely to close ranks and not give information, or who would be subject to criminal sanctions if they admitted actions, or risk reprisals (being outed as an MI5 mole in the IRA would probably lower some people's life expectancy.)

No conflict - or call it war if you want - is likely to end with everyone getting justice or answers.

Someone else said they would be "in favour of a complete bar on legacy investigations for all Troubles related offences. They cost money that could be better spent, they mostly rely on testimony decades after an event so any accuracy on meaningful convictions are questionable, are unlikely to actually provide much information that changes people's opinions (for example an enquiry saying there was no collusion won't stop people believing there was collusion) people are only looking answers that meet their existing views. That would be painful for victims on all sides but we can't keep raking over the past if it prevents progress now." They have a point.

Depends on what you want, genuine healing and closure or closure just because your sides role is coming into the dock and getting exposed.

Curious how many are calling for 'forgetting the past and moving on' this week.

The British Army has a track record reaching well into the 2000s of barbaric reprisals against civilians. Bloody Sunday was not an isolated incident, they have committed similar atrocities against unarmed protesters again and again throughout their long history of brutally occupying and oppressing other countries. In that context, how anyone could possibly believe any claims that Bloody Sunday was anything other than deliberate, calculated, sadistic and cold blooded murder against "undesirables" (people with the audacity to demand an end to oppression) is totally beyond me.

On Bloody Sunday, witnesses reported that many were shot while trying to flee or tending the wounded. In Amritsar, the man in charge explicitly directed his troops to fire at the crowd where it was thickest. In Croke Park, same thing - people trying to escape the bloodshed were explicitly targeted. Atrocities against civilians during the Iraq War were horrific and beyond counting.

In almost all cases, the response was the same - a whitewash and cover up by the British government, and a total lack of meaningful consequences for any of the specific individuals involved.

The British Army believe themselves to be above the law, and the British government allows them to be above the law. It's that simple. Karen Bradley's comments last week were not a mere slip of the tongue - to a sizeable proportion of the British political establishment, they and the people who serve them have the right to do anything they like, they answer to no one, and they operate under no laws or parameters other than the ones they choose to observe.

I'm normally not one to generalise, but when it comes to the British Army I find it exceedingly difficult not to. I do not believe for one second that the majority of them are good people and that these problems are caused by "a few bad apples". The culture of "we rule the world and everyone else is beneath us" has never gone away, it permeates the military and the government officials responsible for overseeing it, and tarnishes the entire organisation utterly beyond redemption. I imagine a sizeable number of recruits to the army join it with romantic visions of Britain as a conqueror and an empire in mind, and if that's the starting point, anything which results can only be totally corrosive. Much like the concept of "American Exceptionalism", I suspect that a huge number of people who join the British Army in the first place, do so to further their own desires to see Britain ruling over other people.

janfebmar wrote: »

Not just this week, but since the GFA, painful as it was. What was the Good Friday Agreement for? Was it not that all terrorists (for want of a better word) or aggressors or soldiers or call them what you want could be pardoned from their convictions and the past put in the past?

I suggest you read it sometime.

And yes 'this week'. After 20 years since the GFA and numerous attempts to pin something on Adams and other republicans, there is a sudden noticeable shift. It was a 'war/warzone and we have to move on, there is no evidence blah blah these guys are old men blah blah there were riots and people throwing stones blah blah.

Was it Jack Charlton who said...'they don't like it up 'em'.

RobMc59 wrote: »

No it was corporal Jones in dad's army.
If people are willing to move on,which is what had happened-why rake up bad feelings by not including British soldiers as part of that?-saying that it's suddenly being said now is untrue.

You may be right about Dad's Army, how apposite.
But you are wrong about 'what has happened'. Nothing has really moved on.
We need both governments to come up with a way to deal with legacy issues. But that is difficult because one government's forces was a principal player in the conflict - taking sides and colluding with loyalists.

janfebmar wrote: »

The British government spends £200,000,000 million investigating just one atrocity, and their p.m. apologises.

How many of the hundreds of unsolved atrocities have the PIRA / INLA investigated, or come clean about? If you take Jean McColville for example, they did not even admit kidnapping and killing her. Instead they told her abandoned kids she had run off with a British soldier. A lie. Decades later her body was found due to beach erosion in Co. Louth, and did not the post mortem show she was tortured? Even a leading Republican in Belfast - who most people believe was in the IRA - says he was never in the IRA.

Something else new this week, bringing a sovereign government down to the level of a paramilitary organisation. Bingo.

They spent that money because they whitewashed and lied for 40 years or more. Let the British taxpayer decide why their money was spent.

janfebmar wrote: »

The Smithwicks Tribunal found there was collusion between the Gardai and the PIRA. And do not mention the arms trial and Haughey.

Yes, we investigated that and laid the relevant blame.
And do please take note of the word 'principal'.


Good night.

RobMc59 wrote: »

With your rigid perception you will never understand that there are people who believe in the rule of law for all,who see the pursuit of soldier f as the British sticking to that whilstw terrorists from both sides are walking round scott free.

What an incredible unself aware (you are British I think) insult to the people of Derry and elsewhere who have pursued justice for years and years. Pathetic that you mention 'rule of law'.

If there are people roaming free; perhaps look first to your perfidious and duplicitios government who played with lives in their pursuit of their own selfish interests. It was they who did these deals.

Pissartist wrote: »

One mans terrorist, is another mans freedom fighter.

Great quote but it will never make bombing Birmingham or gunning down Civil Rights marchers right

FrancieBrady wrote: »

None of it was right and none of it should ever have happened.

Almost 50 years for one player to get around to charging ONE alleged killer does not reflect kindly on either the responsible government or the people of a nation who cling to the belief that their foreign policy is benevolent or just.

Well for 50 years from 1922 to 1972 they wouldnt even discuss Northern Ireland in their Parliament so no surprises there.

For gods sake....
Surely when you become a soldier you should be allowed to shoot and kill whoever you want...