Should the IRA or republicans return to violence?

cdebru

cdebru wrote:

never mind that you did not prove any link to the statistic and the IRA

That would be impossible as dead people dont talk.

If this is going to turn into a tangent on suicide on a dull cold damp dreary day like this between you two erstwhile best buddies, please take it elsewhere thanks

cdebru

Earthman wrote:

That would be impossible as dead people dont talk.

http://www.suicidereferencelibrary.com/test4~id~1778.php

well just to finish cant copy and paste if you read it it clearly states that although paramilitaries are a problem in the area

that each suicide is an individual act and they occur for a variety of reasons
including unemployment drug abuse relationship problems and that you cannot tar everyone with the same brush

besides which the paramilitary group that has been blamed is not the PIRA but the INLA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3494511.stm

ishmael whale

cdebru wrote:

except in isolated incidents the IRA did not target people because of their religion catholic or protestant

http://www.brandonhamber.com/publications/Chap%204%20-%20Victims%20NI%20Marie%20Smyth.pdf

If you want to get lost in detail, trying the list above.

The key point is not that the IRA killed more Catholics than the British Army (although it looks like they did.) The key point is that most people killed in the conflict were civilians. Additionally, civilians and security force personnel account for over 80% of deaths. Combined republican and loyalist paramilitary deaths comprise about 13% of the total. On the other hand, paramilitaries are responsible for over 80% of deaths, with security forces responsible for about 11%.

All this boils down to is the simple fact that the IRA were right in the thick of it, killing civilians with the best of them. That’s all that’s needed. A simple recognition that the IRA campaign was not an historic struggle against oppression, and in fact involved plenty of violence inflicted on civilians in communities in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. This is not to excuse Loyalist actions, simple to point out that the IRA actions are not praiseworthy and that for all the banging on about perfidious Albion, the security forces created far fewer widows.

Half-Bicycle

"I just don't dress them up in romantic fairytale visions of "fighting the good fight". What was spawned as a symptom of a cause swiftly became cause of the symptom. You'd do well to remember that little phrase.

Further, if you support SF then you support the IRA. I have nothing more to say on taht matter"

oh my. Who's being romantic? I prefer realism myself. Anyway, since you bring up the hoary old chestnut of SF=IRA I can see that I'm clearly wasting my time.

Keep it real.

cdebru

ishmael whale wrote:

http://www.brandonhamber.com/publications/Chap%204%20-%20Victims%20NI%20Marie%20Smyth.pdf

If you want to get lost in detail, trying the list above.

The key point is not that the IRA killed more Catholics than the British Army (although it looks like they did.) The key point is that most people killed in the conflict were civilians. Additionally, civilians and security force personnel account for over 80% of deaths. Combined republican and loyalist paramilitary deaths comprise about 13% of the total. On the other hand, paramilitaries are responsible for over 80% of deaths, with security forces responsible for about 11%.

All this boils down to is the simple fact that the IRA were right in the thick of it, killing civilians with the best of them. That’s all that’s needed. A simple recognition that the IRA campaign was not an historic struggle against oppression, and in fact involved plenty of violence inflicted on civilians in communities in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. This is not to excuse Loyalist actions, simple to point out that the IRA actions are not praiseworthy and that for all the banging on about perfidious Albion, the security forces created far fewer widows.

the interesting thing is that the link you provided blows mycrofts other contention that the IRA killed more catholics than anyone else out of the water

ishmael whale

cdebru wrote:

the interesting thing is that the link you provided blows mycrofts other contention that the IRA killed more catholics than anyone else out of the water

Fine. Now would you like to address the key point, which is that the IRA was out there killing civilians with the best of them, rather than trying to skate off onto a point of detail that doesn't change this essential reality.

cdebru

ishmael whale wrote:

Fine. Now would you like to address the key point, which is that the IRA was out there killing civilians with the best of them, rather than trying to skate off onto a point of detail that doesn't change this essential reality.

what is your point of course the IRA killed civilians I did not dispute that

my point was that the IRA in general did not target and kill people based on their religion.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.pl

the simple fact that can be derived from this is that the IRA is the only organisation that killed less civilians than it did the people it was targetting

loyalist paramilitaries deliberately targeted civilians and killed 20 times more civilians than they did republican paramilitaries

the british security forces killed more civilians than they manged to kill paramilitaries of either hue

ishmael whale

cdebru wrote:

what is your point of course the IRA killed civilians I did not dispute that ....the british security forces killed more civilians than they manged to kill paramilitaries of either hue

My point is the simple fact that the IRA have far more deaths on their conscience than British security forces and suffered fewer casualties, which I'm not sure is clear from the spin you are putting on it. This plain reality does not sit comfortably with a view that the IRA were conducting a heroic struggle against oppression.

The fact that they killed more Catholics than the British Army puts it quite starkly, and I don't think anyone who isn't an SF apologist has trouble seeing the significance of that fact. But that's not the key point. The key point is the nature of their campaign. SF supporters seem to have a very different picture of that campaign to the rest of us.

bonkey

cdebru wrote:

the simple fact that can be derived from this is that the IRA is the only organisation that killed less civilians than it did the people it was targetting

That makes them the least worst, which is hardly praiseworthy in and of itself.

cdebru

ishmael whale wrote:

My point is the simple fact that the IRA have far more deaths on their conscience than British security forces and suffered fewer casualties, which I'm not sure is clear from the spin you are putting on it. This plain reality does not sit comfortably with a view that the IRA were conducting a heroic struggle against oppression.

The fact that they killed more Catholics than the British Army puts it quite starkly, and I don't think anyone who isn't an SF apologist has trouble seeing the significance of that fact. But that's not the key point. The key point is the nature of their campaign. SF supporters seem to have a very different picture of that campaign to the rest of us.

so it is a counting contest whoever scores the least can sit at home conscience free

what of course the stark figures do not take account of is that loyalist paramilitaries were working for the british by proxy
there were allowed to operate and kill innocent catholics or in some cases they actually operated on behalf of the british
so put the 873 civilians murdered by loyalist paramilitaries alongside the 192 civilians murdered by the british securuty services it puts a different slant on the figures

unless of course you dont believe that loyalists paramilitary acted in collusion with and at the behest of the British security services

Lemming

cdebru wrote:

my point was that the IRA in general did not target and kill people based on their religion.

Eh ... there have been quite a few infamous incidents where they went into various locations for no other reason than they were predominantly populated by protestant civilians and machine-gunned the place.

If that's not targetting based on religion then I'm not sure what way "up" is.

cdebru

Lemming wrote:

Eh ... there have been quite a few infamous incidents where they went into various locations for no other reason than they were predominantly populated by protestant civilians and machine-gunned the place.

If that's not targetting based on religion then I'm not sure what way "up" is.

there are a few and I can only think of one during the most recent campaign where the IRA targeted people because they were protestant

that is why I put in general in the sentence

mycroft

cdebru wrote:

besides which the paramilitary group that has been blamed is not the PIRA but the INLA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3494511.stm

And I have previously posted links that the INLA punishment squads in the area have been "subcontracted" to the INLA by the IRA.

Are you really so naieve to believe that the INLA such a small sub section of the republican movement can operate "community policing units" without the implied or implicit support of the IRA or at the very least the IRA turning a blind eye?

the interesting thing is that the link you provided blows mycrofts other contention that the IRA killed more catholics than anyone else out of the water

Where does it say that?

And it seems to me you don't mind that republican terrorists killed more innocents than anyone else?

Lemming

cdebru wrote:

there are a few and I can only think of one during the most recent campaign where the IRA targeted people because they were protestant

that is why I put in general in the sentence

There are three that spring to mind for me:

The rememberance day parade bombing, a pub "shooting" in Omagh (I think it was many moons ago - I could be mistaken on the town)?, and that work-yard where they shot 7 protestant workers.

cdebru

mycroft wrote:

And I have previously posted links that the INLA punishment squads in the area have been "subcontracted" to the INLA by the IRA.

Are you really so naieve to believe that the INLA such a small sub section of the republican movement can operate "community policing units" without the implied or implicit support of the IRA or at the very least the IRA turning a blind eye??

subcontracted out have they seen the contract did you come on for god sake that is nonesense

why would they do that ?

mycroft wrote:

Where does it say that??

http://www.brandonhamber.com/public...rie Smyth.pdf

page 8 of 11 republican paramilitaries killed 24.7% of all catholics killed

loyalist paramilitaries killed 47.6% of all catholics killed

mycroft wrote:

And it seems to me you don't mind that republican terrorists killed more innocents than anyone else?

actually they did not

loyalist paramilitaries killed 873 civilians

republican paramilitaries killed 737 civilians

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.pl

Calina

In answer to the question posed by the OP - no. I don't think a return to violence would be desirable. There is no justification for killing and/or maiming anyone.

cdebru

Lemming wrote:

There are three that spring to mind for me:

The rememberance day parade bombing, a pub "shooting" in Omagh (I think it was many moons ago - I could be mistaken on the town)?, and that work-yard where they shot 7 protestant workers.

ok again i said in general now in 30 years and thousands of IRA operations you can think of three

in the case of the only one that you gave enough information on to clearly identify I dont think it is 100% that the bomb was there to target the people attending the remembrance parade
the IRA claim it was not but have never properly explained what happened

ishmael whale

cdebru wrote:

so it is a counting contest whoever scores the least can sit at home conscience free

No, that's clearly not what I'm saying. I'm simply pointing out that more of the damage was done by the IRA, because sometimes it looks as if this is lost sight of. In terms of where this leads, clearly security forces given legitimate authority to police a country have to be judged by a higher standard than a paramilitary organisation. Its perfectly rational to enquire into why even one in every ten fatalities can be laid at their door.

But that's not the same as pretending that the IRA campaign was something other than what it was. Paramilitaries are bad news. We really need to see them gone.

cdebru wrote:

so put the 873 civilians murdered by loyalist paramilitaries alongside the 192 civilians murdered by the british securuty services it puts a different slant on the figures

I thought you were suggesting its not a numbers game? But, for what its worth, is it really rational to assign every civilian killed by loyalists at the door of the British security services?

mycroft

cdebru wrote:

subcontracted out have they seen the contract did you come on for god sake that is nonesense

why would they do that ?

To "maintain control"?

And again your literal interpretation ignores the thrust of the post. Could the INLA operate "community policing units" in belfast without IRA support?

saltar

cdebru wrote:

subcontracted out have they seen the contract did you come on for god sake that is nonesense

why would they do that ?




http://www.brandonhamber.com/public...rie Smyth.pdf

page 8 of 11 republican paramilitaries killed 24.7% of all catholics killed

loyalist paramilitaries killed 47.6% of all catholics killed




actually they did not

loyalist paramilitaries killed 873 civilians

republican paramilitaries killed 737 civilians

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.pl

MyCroft is full of hot air and no actual fact and when presented with evidence dissapears or ignores the facts, indeed he is no different than your average unionist (maybe he is one,I don't know) or most political opponents of Sinn Fein. In this regard he will be found spouting nothing but tripe and backing it up with circumstantial mumbo jumbo.

sceptre

saltar wrote:

MyCroft is full of hot air and no actual fact and when presented with evidence dissapears or ignores the facts, indeed he is no different than your average unionist (maybe he is one,I don't know) or most political opponents of Sinn Fein. In this regard he will be found spouting nothing but tripe and backing it up with circumstantial mumbo jumbo.

Please read the rules regarding treating other posters with a reasonable anmount of respect and decorum.

Next time you post something like what you posted above or anything else that doesn't actually make an attempt to contribute to a thread discussion your forum access will be withdrawn.

Lemming

cdebru wrote:

ok again i said in general now in 30 years and thousands of IRA operations you can think of three

in the case of the only one that you gave enough information on to clearly identify I dont think it is 100% that the bomb was there to target the people attending the remembrance parade
the IRA claim it was not but have never properly explained what happened

To be honest, there's been that many that you just loose count and they all blur. I posted a list (that was googled inside of 10 minutes to verify) on this thread. Here it is for posterity:

lemming wrote:

Teebane: Jan 17th 1992
Teebane crossroads between Cookstown and Omagh, County Tyrone.
IRA bombs a minibus carrying protestant contruction workers. 8 dead, 6 severely injured.

Claudy Day: 31st July 1972
Three bombs planted outside three prominent protestant businesses.
9 dead - two catholics, seven protestants including an 8 year old child. The first bomb went off and then everyone ran and was caught in the secondary and tertiary blasts.

La Mon House: 17th Feb 1978
Petrol bombing of a country hotel holding a conference by the Irish Collie club, predominantly protestant in make-up. Twelve dead. Countless others of 400 guests burnt, some badly.

Tullyvallen: 1st Sept. 1975
Tullyvallen orange hall - two IRA men entered and sprayed the hall with machine gun fire. 4 dead, one more later.

Bloody Friday: 21st July 1972
Twenty bombs with no warning detonated in the space of one hour in Belfast City. 9 dead, 130 wounded.

Shankill: 23rd Oct 1993
Shankill Fish Shop bombed - killing 9 protestants and the IRA bomber carrying the device.

Enniskillen: 8th Nov 1987
IRA bombing of a Remberance Day ('Poppy Day') parade.
11 dead, one a reserve RUC member, 63 injured - 9 seriously.
All of the dead were protestants civilians with the exception of the Reserve URC member - also protestant.

Kings Mill: 5th jan 1976
IRA stop a minibus driving back from a textile factory in Co.Armagh. They ask who on the bus is a catholic - which the bus driver turns out to be - and tell him to go before lining the rest of the workers up and excuting them.

As for the enniskillen bombing, it doesn't matter - they placed a bomb at a parade. What did they think was going to happen in all honesty?

There are, obviously, a hell of a lot more incidents but those will suffice to make my point I trust.

mycroft

sceptre wrote:

Please read the rules regarding treating other posters with a reasonable anmount of respect and decorum.

Next time you post something like what you posted above or anything else that doesn't actually make an attempt to contribute to a thread discussion your forum access will be withdrawn.

[blink]
Sands just got banned for alot less, without warning
[/blink]

My facts came from a undisputed link from another member of this forum, I'm pm'ing him for a link.

saltar, I have an opinion and facts to support it. You have snide accusations (ie anyone who dares to "slander" SF is a unionist).

What I do find fascinating is that cdebru ignores the most startlying and compelling set of stats and goes for one which disputes (to under a hundred people seperate death toils) to discredit me. This table here;

Table 4 Organisations Responsible for Deaths
Organisation Responsible Frequency Valid Percent
Republican Paramilitaries 2001 55.7
Loyalist Paramilitaries 983 27.4
British Army 318 8.9
UDR 11 0.3
RUC 53 1.5
Civilian 11 0.3
Other 216 6.0
Total 3593 100

and this table here

Political Status Number of Deaths Valid Percent
Republic Paramilitaries 359 10.0
Loyalist Paramilitaries 117 3.2
Ex Republican Paramilitaries 4 0.1
Ex Loyalist Paramilitaries 2 0.1
Security (NI) 536 14.9
Security (NNI) 593 16.5
Civilian 1925 53.5
Others 65 1.8

Lets look at the two most compelling sets of stats

Table 4 Organisations Responsible for Deaths
Organisation Responsible Frequency Valid Percent
Republican Paramilitaries 2001 55.7
Political Status Number of Deaths Valid Percent
Civilian 1925 53.5

Even combing loyalist paramilitary, army, security services caused killings they don't equal IRA victims, and the majority of victims of all violence were civilians.

Do the maths.

Once again cdebru is seeing what he chooses to see.

boidey

Should the IRA or republicans return to violence?? It was grizzly adams who said that haven't gone away. Ok whilst the bombmakers have gone into retirement, they still maintain substantial active numbers to batter, maim, murder and bully as they see fit. Whilst drug dealing, racketeering, smuggling are not crimes of violence they still crimes.
Should the chucks abandon politics and just use violence to achive their aims. Whatever for. Their strategy has worked perfectly for them up to now, they can turn the gangersterism up and down as they see fit. The Irish & british govts have sold moderate NI politicians down the swannee.
Somebody on the boards recently made reference to WB Yeats line about will the centre hold; not if SF can have anything to do with it.

I'm away to eat me porridge now

saltar

sceptre wrote:

Please read the rules regarding treating other posters with a reasonable anmount of respect and decorum.

Next time you post something like what you posted above or anything else that doesn't actually make an attempt to contribute to a thread discussion your forum access will be withdrawn.

In an Atempt to clear up the issue and understand your point of view can you be a little clearer in exactly what you mean by contributing to the thread.
If your suggesting that because I'm pushing Mycroft for hard evidence ie. links and fact on the issues being discussed that this is not contributing to the thread then your being hypocritical.
Secondly when someone comes into a discussion and continuously spouts abhorent lies and cannot support his/her argument with fact,then I think its everyones duty including yourself to question that persons reason for doing so. More importantly I think you shoul;d be looking at banning people who do this not those who question the lies.
So either you clear up what exactly you mean or forget about this thread or board being realistic and fair.

saltar

seeing as MyCroft would prefer to play politics with the statistics of the troubles rather that sort them out, here is a link to those stats.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/tables/Organisation_Summary.html

And whoa hey! republicans were responsible for more deaths. Maybe they were just better at what they did than any other group.

Nuttzz

saltar wrote:

And whoa hey! republicans were responsible for more deaths. Maybe they were just better at what they did than any other group.

So they are better murderers? Is that something to be proud of?

cdebru

Lemming wrote:

To be honest, there's been that many that you just loose count and they all blur. I posted a list (that was googled inside of 10 minutes to verify) on this thread. Here it is for posterity:




As for the enniskillen bombing, it doesn't matter - they placed a bomb at a parade. What did they think was going to happen in all honesty?

There are, obviously, a hell of a lot more incidents but those will suffice to make my point I trust.

all of those incidents dont disprove what i said

teebane they were not attacked because of their religion but because they were carrying out construction work on watch towers


Claudy nine people killed five catholic four protestant

le mons there is no evidence that the attack was aimed at killing protestants that was undoubtedly the effect but as to wether it was the intention>The IRA accepted that they had given an insufficent warning of only 9 minutes

tullyvallen was never claimed by the IRA who ever carried it out it was obviously a sectarian attack

bloody friday was not aimed at protestants

shankill was an operation aimed at the leadership of loyalist paramilitaries an IRA volunteer was also killed in the explosion which was obviously premature




the one that I accept as being sectarian beyond any doubt is the kings mill


and as i said the PIRA "in general" did not target people because of their religion

mycroft

mycroft wrote:

[blink]
Sands just got banned for alot less, without warning
[/blink]

Well as I already moved a rant on moderation from you to recycle yesterday,If I see another out of place comment like the above from you here, your access will be withdrawn.

cdebru

mycroft wrote:

[

What I do find fascinating is that cdebru ignores the most startlying and compelling set of stats and goes for one which disputes (to under a hundred people seperate death toils) to discredit me. This table here;

and this table here


Lets look at the two most compelling sets of stats


Even combing loyalist paramilitary, army, security services caused killings they don't equal IRA victims, and the majority of victims of all violence were civilians.

Do the maths.

Once again cdebru is seeing what he chooses to see.

what i find amazing is how you spout something like it is a fact

and even when the evidence is given to you to disprove your contention you wont face up to it

republican paramilitaries did not kill more catholic civilians than other groups

yes the IRA killed more people than anyone else does that mean they were more wrong or evil than loyalists or british security services NO

figures can be twisted and turned to make whatever you want to make from them

none of this has anything to do with the title of the thread


so in answer to the title of the thread the answer is obviously NO


or we will all be back here in 30 years time arguing over another 3000 dead and who killed how many