Mike,
First of all, I suppose I've got to apologise for the tone of my post.
Looking at it in retrospect, it's a load of foaming rant. Bit of a habit
with me, this kind of thing - I'm going to have to lay off the coffee a bit.
However, somewhere in the foaming rant there be wisdom.....
>Rob, I'm quite familiar with the situation. Don't think for a minute that I
think
>the IRA or the pIRA should be considered legitimate politicians. They are
hardly
>'republican' (unless you are talking about People's Republics).
I call them 'republican', as this is what they call themselves - hence Irish
Republican Army (IRA)
>However the level
>to which you and others demonize them would hardly make an IRA member very
>trusting that you didn't have it in for him,
Oh, I and a great many others want everyone affiliated to the IRA D E A D,
and I make no apologies.
There have been far too many bombs in public places where nobody is even
slightly concerned with the colour of the NI flag. As I mentioned before,
kids have been blown away for this "cause", and it's this failure to put the
reality of the situation into perspective that angers me, nothing more.
>because he 'knows' that what you say
>about him isn't true, so far as he is concerned.
No. The IRA strangely always seem to take responsibility for their terrorist
actions. And noone denies anything, particularly Gerry Adams, who likes to
threaten reimplementation of the IRA when he is backed into a corner during
political debate.
>I've found that this is a
>typical british argument while sipping their tea, ":oh, we're the civilized
ones,
>THEY are just utter barbarians..." that kind of thing.
Absolutely. And I know you yanks love more than anyone a bit of
holier-than-thou action, but I think that if you can't label the IRA
barbarians, then I guess Hitler and Genghis Khan were great guys too.
>Condescension and
>alternately, vilification, gets you nowhere.
I wasn't trying to "get somewhere", I was putting the discussion here on a
track closer to the reality of the situation. Anger and utter contempt for
the republican motives is widespread, and not just in my head - far from it.
Most reasonable people lose all sympathy for a cause once bombing kids
becomes the tactic of the day.
>Actually, until recently it was written into the Eire constitution, and its
part
>of the IRA and Sinn Fein 'platform', that rejoining Eire was the ultimate
goal,
>so I don't understand what you are basing this claim on.
I wasn't talking about then, I was talking about now. Countering the comment
that the whole goal was an end to an enforced splitting of Eire. I have also
never heard of what you describe above, despite hearing about the NI problem
mostly every day for most of my life. Perhaps Adams used this as Yank
propaganda, I don't know, but I've certainly never heard this once. There
would be no problem if the British government called the shots. They have
wanted rid of this problem for decades.
>Great evacuate them, if they are British. If they are Irish, let them stay.
For Christ's sake !!! They're ALL British, and Irish - they're citizens of
British Northern Ireland. One more time - there IS NO British/Irish
dichotomy in Northern Ireland. This is a solely American misconception
almost certainly born of Adams and his fundraising activities. They are all
Northern Irish which currently comes under the "British" umbrella. Neither
faction is affiliated to either Eire or England.
>Fine way to develop trust Rob.
Trust? Excuse my French, but what the fuck are you on about? How is NI
republican trust of the English populace an issue?
>Fine fine strategy. Let me give you a lesson on
>terrorism: Terrorists do what they do for very rational, very logical
reasons.
>What they do may be horrific, but everything they do is always for very
good
>reasons, from their point of view.
Yeah. Gaining control of NI.
>The point of terrorism is to get the other
>side to appreciate that the oppressed may really have good reasons, by
giving
>them a concentrated dose of their own medicine.
There is no oppression except the republican kneecap rule.
>The fact you keep ranting on in
>such virulent terms shows me that YOU haven't learned this lesson yet. If
most
>british are like you, I predict that the violence will continue on for
quite a
>while more....
The opinions of the British populace are irrelevant. There is nothing the
British people can do to affect this situation in any way. Except get blown
up. Even the government are virtually hopeless these days, and they've been
accommodating as hell - they even brought in some Yank to negotiate
recently, as they thought the republicans might respond better to what they
perceive as a friendly mediator.
>Considering that the level of violence in even the worst areas of NI is
nowhere
>near the levels of violence in peaceful Boston, MA, you can hardly expect
me to
>agree with you...sounds to me like a drama queen at work...
Yeah. Drama. Well, your agreement is irrelevant, your opinion is irrelevant
and your information is, well, simply false.
>Its always easier to get away with oppression when nobody thinks that you
are
>really capable of it.
What oppression? How? Examples? Even Sinn Fein don't make such pretensions.
Not in the UK anyway. You're simply making this up.
>Which just indicates the the propaganda may be working, and the british
have been
>able to avoid any fuckups for a sufficient amount of time. The SAS threw in
the
>towel. They concluded there were at best 300 active IRA people committing
most if
>not all violent acts, and they couldn't take them down. With one of the
tightest
>gun control laws in the world, the SAS couldn't outgun the IRA. With one of
the
>most absolute policies abdicating the human rights of the accused (and the
Laws
>of War for that matter, depending on which way you want to take the
argument),
>they couldn't hunt down and erase even a fraction of the enemy.
Where the shite did you get this crap from? You're just making it up, aren't
you?
There was no such clash between the SAS and IRA, there was certainly no
gunfight (ROFL).
British military intelligence disclosed that they had a complete list of all
members and their addresses, even their school records at the time of the
shoot to kill uproar, probably hoping to gain public support for some kind
of systematic cleanup policy, but the Gibraltar affair put an end to all
that. The SAS were never put on a cleanup mission, and they do not do their
own intelligence. They are a oft-proven crack antiterrorist squad, so if
they'd been put on a clearance mission, there would be no problem with the
IRA now.
>If you are so sick to the back of the teeth about it, then quit.
Quit what? life? What are you talking about?
Rob.
PS Jeez - I'm going to have to start smoking again!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:57 MDT