Terrorist or Freedom Fighter.

Or what view certain governments want you to have.

 

I don’t think I will get involved in this thread.

However it has the potential to get very interesting.

 

Don't let the debate on the Torture at Guantanamo put you off. I enjoyed the debate, very civilised I thought.
I'd love to hear your opinion. I might not agree with it but it can be debated surely.

 

Nice one Henke much apreiciated.

I feel I was miss-represented in that thread and although the debate was interesting, I felt at times it became a bit farcical.


Regards to this thread-From my point of view, I believe there are people/groups whose sole intent is to destroy others way of life. There is a big difference between these people and people who are fighting for liberties and freedoms.

I fully understand why some people will pick up a gun to fight for a cause but when the target is the innocence it can not be accepted, no matter the plight.
By all means go after the aggressor but for me a terrorist attack is when the sole intention is to murder or maim the innocence.

 

Different moments in time, bring different agendas and goals. Sometimes you have to support your enemy if it means you can stifle a bigger one.

 

The circumstances of WWII are simply not comparable in this thread. Though I do believe the second atomic bomb should not have been dropped though blame rests on both governments(Japan and America).

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also sites of military production and bases. For instance the bomb in nagasaki went off between and arms/armor plant and a torpedo plant.


The IRA continued operation ln after it was no longer necessary and it is that unnecessary time period that parts of it became terrorist. It was the foolishness and provocation of elements of the IRA along with the brutality of British paras that effectively killed off the nonviolent civil rights movement in Northern Ireland which is another reason I cannot find it in me to see them as legitimate.

Finally, think of it this way: if it is unnacceptable for the UVF to detonate carbombs in Dublin, then it is unacceptable for the IRA to set off a bomb in a pub in Birmingham

 

20 years ago the taliban was part of the general Afhan resistance to a Soviet incursion. Their as yet unknown brutal religious convictions had taken a backseat to a bigger cause. After they had booted the russians out and consolidated power they turned to implementing those convictions through repression. Only then did we see who they really were.

 

A bigger cause most certainly "yes". Unknown brutality I am not so sure, perhaps an ignorance towards it or even a strategic blind eye may have been more likely.

 

* off !

I back the Judean People's Front.

 

I don't accept that mate. The Irish are not occupying any British land.

 

This is the thread when everyone's sympathies come straight to the fore. How anyone can say the IRA are/were not terrorists is beyond me and surely beyond the realms of reality. The deliberately targeted civilians in a way that any right minded person would find abhorrent. Nothing, nothing justifies the deliberate planting of bombs in shopping centres, buses, pubs or any other place where the public gather. And as for warning phone calls....don't make me laugh.

As for the Taleban, they use terror to supress Afghan's rights and especially women's rights. The PLO and Hamas bombed shops, hotels, buses, cafes and even religious schools...if you don't consider that as terror then you are not of sane mind.

Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are both proponents of a wider terrorist agenda primarily aimed at non muslims and practiced under the umbrella of fundamental islam. Both are guilty of shocking terrorist crimes used against anyone they perceive as an enemy and they both regularly adjust their agenda to suit their warped sense of religion!

The Kurdistan Workers Party have attacked and killed Turkish civillan workers in an area they see as their own. That's terror tactics aimed at discouraging any non Kurd to come work in an area they want to ethnically cleanse....terrorists and in every sense just as bad as the others that are mentioned.

If you wanted to counter your argument by throwing in elected governments then you should have added them in the poll or at least in your initial question. And just because an elected government decides to support one or another group to suit their own ends, I'm capable of making my own mind up in a subjective manner.

I don't believe in having some form of "terrorists league" but if their was one, some of the world's governments would be challenging for first place!

 

I was going to vote for the IRA but those * are now taking protection money off major drug dealers in Dublin , terrorist or freedom fighter all the same to me.

 

dont tell the workers from kurdistan that..haha

 

honestly a terrorist and a freedom fighter are basically the same thing depending on what side your on... some do worse things than others obviously but its pretty subjective

 

Ok well the first thing that popped into my head was that more than half the population of Northern Ireland would not consider it irish land. But I realize my knowledge of the population of all those counties is limited, if more than half of each county wants to be part of the UK then its british land

 

The IRA would have no place in Irish history were it not for the terrorism brought to our shores by the British Tyrants.

Invasion, murder, rape, internment, brutality... all installed on an innocent people who for 800 years have risen above it with faith and culture.

Once a band of soldiers rebel against this disgusting injustice and unite and stand against them and declare their war on the invaders they are deemed as terrorists??!!

I dont think so!

The crown and her gutless armies have destroyed nations all over the world, Ireland has never and will never stand for that and for those who dare to call those who stand to fight for their nation a terrorist is as bad a judge as British brutality itself.

i accept that attrocities carried out by the IRA were tragic and extremely regrettable, but arnt all wars?!?

 

Those people were put there to create a stronghold for the invading, occupying force. They would be welcome to stay in a united Ireland, and I expect that they would be treated better than the Catholics in the North have been treated by the British. The IRA were at war with the British. It is tragic but there are civilian casualties in war. There have certainly been huge numbers of Catholics killed over centuries.

I find it unreasonable to ask the IRA to manfully endure centuries of rape and murder of innocent people and yet somehow conduct their war in 'whiter than white' way. If the British hadn't abused the Irish for centuries no one need have been killed.

 

mate i think that thing that just ''popped'' into your head should stay there

what you are doing is judging by the fact that there is a slightly higher percentage of 'home-born' protestants than catholics in the north of ireland (as there are now more catholics by way of the polish invasion), then they would consider it British land before considering it Irish??

Sorry bud, but yer wrong.

Not even the great Unionist powerhouse Ian Paisley Snr would call the land where he dominated the minds of 95% of the unionist minds British, not only that, he was ''PROUD TO BE AND IRISHMAN''

 

Great post
were on the same wavelength

 

You were doing fine until your last sentence...."tragic and extremely regrettable"...try telling that to those who lost loved ones who had NO part of what was happening in NI. The IRA used terror as a weapon, face that fact and be honest enough to admit it instead of dressing it up in niceities.