Terrorist or Freedom Fighter.

I mis-read the poll & voted for all of them with the exception of Al-Quaeda. I meant to say that they were all freedom fighters, in one sense or another. Except Al Qaeda, who only exist in the minds of those who seek justification & excuse for the expansionist foreign policies of the USA & it's "allies" & those who seek to use religion as their justification. Religion & freedom are a contradiction in terms & don't belong in the same sentence The problem with most resistance organisations, is that when the cause is over, won or lost. Those in positions of power within the organisation don't want to give up that power & go back to their former lives of quiet obscurity. That's when they start to become oppressors of the very people they sought to emancipate.

 

Never mind the conflicts and ideaologies, I believe that if reasonable normal people from outside northern Ireland could even have seen the way the republican (and loyalist) paramilitaries treated their own people locally in the estates and villages they controlled, about 99% of folk would be absolutely disgusted and would be ashamed of giving any support. Big brother wouldnt even start to describe it.

Its almost impossible for an outsider to really see this so take my advice and dont spout stong opinions on this because 200 years in a library reading about it wont make you really understand it like living in the troubles for 10 years. Neither the troubles nor the paramilitaries are anything like people are describing them above.

 

ridiculous. Unbelievably ignorant. Have you ever hear a non-republican version of history? That is so so so factually and morally wrong. There were no warning bombs in pubs all over England and northern Ireland. A bomb was detonated at a public remebrance gathering at Ennsikillen where the cast majority woudl clearly have been civilians. They machine gunned a church service once. Whole town and village centres were blown up. The IRA showed no regard for civillians many many times. Anyone who sactioned or carried out these deeds is a heartless evil psycopath.

 

Actually am pretty disgusted by some of the ideas that the British were horrible to the Irish generations long dead (800 years as the dogma goes) so its OK for the Irish to kill innocent modern British people who had nothing to do with these deeds in the past. We are not our ancestors so the population in general should not have to pay as random targets for their misdeeds in the pre-democratic era. Thats morally bankcrupt and denies the principle of individual rather than collective repsonsibility.

As for having to fight a whiter than white war, problem was the IRA's tactics were blacker than black at times, at the opposite extreme. They didnt need to slaughter anywhere near as many civilians, and for so little gain. Most of the slaughter made no tactical sense. Also from a purely tactical point of view the IRA violence brought nothing after 1974. The deal on the table then at Sunningdale was basically the deal they accepted 20-¬odd years later. It was and is the maximum deal that they could achieve in a divided country. The 20 years of conflict 1974-94 were total waste. There is not even a warped justification for killing with no reasonable chance of any gain. Even the INLA leader said that recently.

 

I am an outside perspective so I understand what i say is taken with a grain of salt. The modern Northern Irish-Brit has had nothing to do with the aforementioned years of torture. They are the product of history long-past. I therefore must accept that their popular choice of where to give their allegiance is theirs alone and should not be held to any standard of penance for sins of kings and governments they did not follow.

Having said that, the Green Irish there that want to reunite with the republic are very well within their rights to legally work toward that goal.

I view things in the reality of the present day. There are two sizable groups who have known no other home but Ulster. Now, we have a decision to make on how to settle this conflict, on what rules such a settlement would be decided by. There are precedents: open conflict followed by suppression of the loser, open conflict followed by eradication of the loser (ethnic cleansing), outside intervention by an interested actor where either the ROI or the UK decide the outcome (or together carve out a convenient outcome) without input from the local populace, or, finally, the framework rules of democracy may be applied and adhered to.

I believe that the most fair and practical way to solve this crisis is through the democratic process and not through grinding armed conflict among civilian targets. Let the counties vote fairly and decide the democratic way.

By turning to civilian targeting such as the Birmingham pub bombing, which had little military objective, the late IRA achieved nothing but killing the legitimacy of peaceful and legal republicanism in the north. The amount achieved after the IRA's disarmament and the separation of it from Sinn Fein who now acts in this legal framework further testifies the illegitimacy of ineffectivity of its tactics in producing anything more than prolonged misery on both sides.

 

For me, it's when a group of people use terror to influence society by targeting innocents. There's a couple interesting exclusions in that definition than what the military believes... specifically that governments are open targets to me, and that how I define innocent isn't black and white.

As was obviously going to happen, this thread has become an IRA debate. I think I know a lot more about the subject than the average American (who probably doesn't even know that protestant equivalents existed), but only enough to make myself an * with anyone whose grown up with it.

That said... I have a question I'm interested in.
Let's consider a hypothetical situation in a nation we'll call Kerplakistan. Kerplakistan is your typical democratic republic within its' natural borders. However, it also controls and governs land and people across a mountain range. These people aren't permitted to vote, have their "natural rights" (however you wish to define those) violated regularly, are being repressed, and can allegorically be compared to slaves. The people of the Kerplakistan obviously have the power to call upon their government to stop these acts, but they haven't over several decades now.

The question is... just how innocent are these civilians with the power to vote? Are they or are they not responsible for their governments actions? And to what degree?

 

I don't often find anything to disagree with in most of your posts but in this post I have never seen so much naivity in a post.

Point 1. so its OK for the Irish to kill innocent modern British people who had nothing to do with these deeds in the past. We are not our ancestors so the population in general should not have to pay as random targets for their misdeeds in the pre-democratic era. Thats morally bankcrupt and denies the principle of individual rather than collective repsonsibility.

Sorry Keltoi but isn't that the thing about war? The fact that people who have nothing to do with it get caught up in it?
You seem to think that the 'misdeeds' as you call them ended way, way in the past. How naive are you trying to make yourself out to be?
The misdeeds were going on well into the 1990s by the British military and their puppet police force, the RUC.
Does the terrorising of women and children only matter when the women and children are British?

Point 2. As for having to fight a whiter than white war, problem was the IRA's tactics were blacker than black at times, at the opposite extreme. They didnt need to slaughter anywhere near as many civilians, and for so little gain. Most of the slaughter made no tactical sense.

Do you really think there is such a thing as a 'Whiter than white' war?
All wars are blacker than black. Civilians ALWAYS suffer the most in modern wars. Do you think it is any more comforting to a person who has lost a loved one to know that the bomb that killed them was dropped from 10,000 feet in the air and not planted in their home?

Some people think that a bomb dropped from an aeroplane is more legitimate than a bomb thrown, planted or strapped to someone's body.

Sometime the IRA got it wrong tactically, but so did the British at times, but these errors only come to light years after. Some create so much of a stir that they are reported on TV and even the British civilians are shocked, but not shocked enough to put pressure on the British government to withdraw the murderous troops.
Like the shooting of Majella O'Hare, shot near her home on 14 August 1976, by members of joint British army patrol of Royal Marine Commando and Parachute Regiment. She died on her way to the hospital. She was 12 years old. What tactical aim did this act achieive?
There are many cases of cold blooded murder by British security forces on innocent Irish people. If you want more examples then I will provide them, but we all know this to be true.

Point 3. The deal on the table then at Sunningdale was basically the deal they accepted 20-¬odd years later. It was and is the maximum deal that they could achieve in a divided country. The 20 years of conflict 1974-94 were total waste. There is not even a warped justification for killing with no reasonable chance of any gain. Even the INLA leader said that recently

Then Sunningdale deal collapsed because the Unionists feared that it would eventually lead to a united Ireland.
The Sunningdale Agreement was doomed to failure, not least because Ulster Unionist leader Harry West and the 'Rev' Ian Paisley were violently against it.
Not because the IRA or Sinn Fein did anything to sabotage it.

As for the conflict between 1974 and 1994 being a waste. Isn't that the whole thing about war, that it is a total waste?

There are no goodies and baddies in war, just baddies. It's just that the victors get to call themselves the goodies and the war in Ireland, because of it's close proximity to Britain has fed peoples' prejudices that little bit more. The British were seen to be doing the right thing against those nasty Irish.
Well let me tell you Keltoi. If the Germans had successfully invaded Britain do you think the British would give a * about planting a bomb in a German pub? I think not mate.

 

great thread guys. great to see everyones opinion is respected.

 

Its actually the judeans peoples front.....monty python classic lol

 

* splitters.
I thought it was the Popular Front.

 

mate, you may be American but you have one of the best level headed realistic non-tribal grasps of the situation and future posibilities of anyone I have ever talked to from outside northern Ireland. You must have studied politics to some depth? We have to deal with the present situation not one 300, 400, 800 years back. Anyone who thinks a simple united Ireland would work now is not living in the real world. It would be the troubles but reveresed with army everywhere and bombs going off in the centre of Dublin. Both sides have suffered too much to give in now so the present compromise is th eonly solution. Its possible some sort of actual joint sovereinty may be possible.

 

You are indulging in what is known in NI as 'whataboutery' making too wrongs = a right. Its all wrong. There is also a difference between fighting an immediate defensive war and trying to turn the clock back to the way it was before the plantation 400 years ago. Thats idealistic fantasy and given it had no chance of succeeding why should people suffer for their niavity. You can only deal with the here and now. Those who think they can go back to some golden age, reverse defeats of 800 years ago are just dangerous dreamers. NI is not like the south where it was a thinner strata of upper class protestants. BTW, the way people portray NI protestants and unionists on here is a disgrace based on niave lapping up of biased demonising sources be they written or verbal. You need to understand two sides in a conclict. The two sides that matter are NI prods and NI catholics. The two governments dont matter really. It may have started as colonial but it is now (dont believe republican dogma that its still colonial - really its pure pish), its an internal ethnic/civil/sectarian conflict of the type that cannot be solved by the stroke of a pen.

BTW, I also nomally agree with your posts but I dont appreciate being called niave. I had many years experience living in Belfast during the troubles, had relatives killed, have been in houses hit by bomb blasts with doors/windown/roof coming in, the roof ripped off a friends buisness with my girlfriend standing in it, seen 20th century people suffering shell shock after bombs etc etc. I also have first hand knowledge of how these guys controlled and terrorised their own people never mind their opposite numbers. Brutal voluntary warfare (which it was after the first few yEAwaged by self selecting/self appointed 'soldiers' involves a lot of brutal people. Its not like they were ordinary joes drafted or in national service. These were volunteers.

I will never give a fig of respect for people who chose the way of war over peace when their is a viable peaceful option. The IRA and loyalists were far far too stuborn about compromise for far too long and were 'slow learners' politically as the SDLP described them. BTW, loyalists may also have rejected sunningdale but the IRA most certainly did too. The peacemakers were the SDLP and the UUP, the ones who took 20 years to get into their skulls what others had seen early in the troubles are the ones we should admire not the violent and short sited extremists of loyalism and republicanism. If we hadnt had the IRA and the loyalists (then the DUP) there would have been peace in NI 20 years earlier. Sorry but that is just tragic.

 

i dont always agree with wat you say keltoi but you make you're points well and i'm glad to see you've started using paragraphs:icon_mrgreen:

whereabouts in beautiful belfast did you live?

 

You can say what you like about the IRA but personally, i feel that Ireland would not be the same as it is today if they hadn't done what they done. Obviously there is things that they done that i dont agree with, but Instead of 32 counties under british rule there are only 6, without the IRA and the fight they put up it would still be 32 counties under British rule. Even the 6 remaining counties are close to joining the rest of Ireland and soon there will be a United Ireland and for that i cant thank them enough

 

couldn't have put it better. good post fella

 

it all depends on who or what you are fighting for and of course what side you are on.
my vote was for haven't a clue, because honestly i don't.

 

Just because you see yourself as 'outide the perspective' as it were, doesn't take anything away from your contribution to what is a sensitive subject.
However, I would like to take you up on a few points.
I don't think anyone is blaming modern day Englishmen for the sins of their fathers, but the wounds of these sins take time to heal, sometimes centuries, so when modern day soldiers representing modern day Englishmen begin their own persecution and inflict violence and torture on modern day Irishmen, then the sins of the fathers become all the more fresh.
Maybe it is wrong to blame ordinary people for what their kings and governments did in the past, but it was the ordinary people who did these deeds under the orders of kings and governments and they did it to ordinary people.
This is still happening now.
The other thing is that just because a land was stolen hundreds of years ago doesn't mean people have to give up now on a struggle for freedom and unity. Many people are carrying on the beliefs and traditions that were handed down from generation to generation. Some of those traditions will include a pledge that no matter how long it takes the struggle must go on. This struggle is then taken up by future generations who have witness at first hand what it mean to live under the English flag.
Thatcher did more damage than most by her arrogant anti-Irish stance in the 1980s. She inflicted unfair laws on the people of the North, laws that were usually only enforced when a catholic/republican broke them.

I agree with this, bearing in mind that it is legal to take up arms in defence of your country against an aggressor.
The fact that this aggressor has had it's occupation of your country endorsed by the rest of the world because of your aggressor's influence on the world stage makes it technically illegal to defend your country, but doesn't make it morally wrong.

If anyone knew of a peaceful solution then they would be the wisest and richest person in the world.
There is no solution now. Only a civil war with, as you point out, the exile of the losers to England or somewhere. But even that would bring it's own problems. It has to come from politics now.

Easier said than done.

There is a saying. 'Treat others as you would like them to treat you.'
If you are an occupational force in a foreign land and you treat the local population with respect, most people with at least show some sort of respect back. They may still try and kill you as you are a soldier of occupation, but at least they will see you are professional and only doing a job.
If that army of occupation singles out a section of society for some brutality and unjustice then the product of this society will give birth to something that will show you the same brutality and injustice. I lived in England for a few years during the 1980s and the majority of people I knew were very anti Irish and cared little if an innocent teenager was beaten senseless by British soldiers or a 12 year old girl was killed. When Bobby Sands was dying in jail the majority of the English cared little.
And some people forget or don't know that Bobby was arrested and sentenced to 14 years for possession of a hand gun, a crime that carried a 6 months sentence on the UK mainland.

As for the ineffectivity of the IRA, well, all I can say is that if the IRA has just thrown bottles and bricks at Tommy Para on the streets of Belfast and Derry then you would not have had the forward leaps in the north as we have seen over the first years of this century. The only reason the British government were willing to talk to the IRA about some kind of peace deal was because the IRA's tactics of targetting financial and military establishments was a thorn in Britains' side.

I wasn't nice to read about people going for a night out in a pub not knowing it would be their last, but it wasn't nice reading about innocent Irish men and women being arrested and tortured before being put in sham trials and sentenced to long terms in prison to satisfy the baying mobs on England's streets.

Another thing you seem to have overlooked is the protestant Paramilitaries role in this prolonged misery.
When the IRA were asked to put down their weapons the UVF said that there is no way they will do the same until the IRA are wiped out.

Yes the Irish-British War was a dirty war and both sides were guilty. But then again doesn't that happen in EVERY war?

 

totally disagree. There was a straigth choice of a 32 county Ireland that was independant but within the commonwealth initially (could have voted out later) which the unionist could have lived with or an immediate 26 county state completely independant. De Valera was given several chances by the British to get a 32 country state in his career with some concessions to Britain (includinng during WWII) but preferred to stick to the 26 county completely independant state. A single nationlistic state with just one culture was the fasion then and De Valera followed that fashion. I think that was a giant mistake IMO. The country should have been kept intact even if it meant that the constitutional break with Britain was more gradual. Commonwealth was purely a symbolic thing to keep the unionists happy. Unionists were about a third of the Irish population and realistically had to be given something to reflect their identity. That wasnt given so partittion became inevitable to prevent a civil war. Read Richard English's academically acclaimed new book 'Irish Freedom'. It totally explodes all the myths the politicians give in their biased accounts of history. A bit of patience, pragmatism and cooler heads would have led to a united Ireland with minimal bloodshed.