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And incidentaly, though Churchill had the decency to condemn the Amritsar massacre, he was responsible for the aerial bombing of villages in Afghanistan. Just one of the reasons the Afghans didn't bless us as liberators...Quote:
Originally Posted by leo9
Well, that make it OK, if you don't recognise the law then you're not breaking it. Same as the US won't sign up to the International Criminal Court.Quote:
Originally Posted by js207
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ns-515345.htmlQuote:
III, from 2009 onwards for the US, bars their use as incendiary devices against civilian targets, as well as against combatants in close proximity to civilians, but specifically does not restrict their use for illumination or smoke production purposes, which is how the US troops were using them in Iraq anyway.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111600374.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=30372
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/...ns-in-fallujah
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/24...g-Say-nothing-
http://ipsnews.net/text/news.asp?idnews=42762
It was persistently referred to as such in the news coverage at the time, but I'm quite ready to believe that this was a misnomer. It's actually more probable than that the military would have been so honest about their aims.Quote:
There wasn't an "Operation Shock and Awe", either - the document titled Shock and Awe was from 1996, expanding upon a phrase dating right back to Sun Tzu;
The city was basically levelled. "Decapitation" doesn't involve blowing someone's entire body to shreds.Quote:
the actual implementation in Iraq was a rapid decapitation attack,
You presumably have casualty figures to back this up which contradict the known ones?Quote:
intended to minimise both civilian and military deaths and very successful in that respect.
There's a very clear point at which "collateral damage" becomes intentional targetting of civilians. Taking out the Pentagon would be a military tactic. Firebombing all of Arlington in the process would be terror tactics.Quote:
You acknowledge the Pentagon would be a legitimate military target in a war, why not accept that Hussein's equivalent compounds and bunkers - which were the targets in those "shock and awe" opening air strikes - were just as legitimate, rather than "terrorism"?
Just to be perfectly clear, I've been asked to note that this was under the British Raj, not the current Afghan war!Quote:
Originally Posted by leo9
As in most cases, the rules are set by the bully with the biggest fist, and they change according to his whims.Quote:
Originally Posted by thir
The Israeli's attacking an Iranian nuclear site is an act of self-defense. The Iranians attacking an Israeli nuclear site would be an act of terrorism. See the difference?
Northern Ireland Car Bombs 'Targeted Police'Sky News – Sat, Apr 28, 2012
Two potentially lethal car bombs found in Northern Ireland were aimed at killing police officers, a unionist minister has claimed.
The explosive devices were discovered after security alerts were triggered in a town near the Irish border and in Belfast.
Ulster Unionist Danny Kennedy, who is also a minister in the Stormont government, said the device found near the border town of Newry was believed to be part of a plot to kill police.
Mr Kennedy said the dissidents were "dangerous and dedicated terrorists, who are determined to cause serious harm, injury and death to members of the security forces regardless of the consequences to local communities".
The Stormont minister said he was very concerned at the increasing number of attacks planned and executed by republican dissidents around Newry.The bomb, containing 600lbs of homemade explosives, was found in an abandoned white Citroen Berlingo van in the Fathom Line area on Thursday evening.
Army bomb experts confirmed the bomb was a "viable device" and successfully disarmed it.
District Commander Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson said: "This was a very significant device. If this had exploded it would have caused devastation."
He said police could only "speculate" about a possible target for the huge bomb at this time.
"What there is no doubt about is that it was completely reckless to have this device anywhere near human life," he said.
The second bomb was found under a parked car in the Ballygomartin Road in north Belfast, causing the evacuation of homes in the area.
Chief Inspector Ian Campbell said: "Those responsible for this have shown callous disregard for members of the public.
"The operation resulted in the evacuation of up to 80 people, including families with young children and elderly residents, for several hours.
"The finger of suspicion points towards dissident republican terrorists and I appeal to anyone with information to come forward to police."
The explosives find came after another arms cache containing guns and ammunition was discovered by police in Belfast on Friday.
.................................................. .................................................. ..........
If you note, the prefix IRA is not used because the IRA are a spent force. The IRA is as extinct as the Dodo, and it is that the IRA hate about the Good Friday Agreement. They hate the peace it has brought to the province. There are no people waving the tricolour out the windows and rioting, there is no need. The IRA has no cause so they cannot be the freedom fighter they once were. Now, the IRA members are now no more, or less than filthy, murdering, cowardly terrorists. The Northern Ireland Government and police now refer to them as dissidents.
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution.
Sounds about right
Be well IAN 2411
Invincible ignorance? Hmmm.
Even the most fervent Fenian complains only of 800 years' oppression - before then, it was Ireland that invaded and oppressed Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland; the invasions from England/Britain were fewer in number than you appear to suppose, and the oppressions were more by the factions within Ireland against each other than by England/Britain against Ireland - the clans against each other and against the Earls and other landowners, the clan leaders and the Earls against the English, the Catholics against the Protestants, the Jacobites against the Hanoverians, the landowners against the subsistence farmers ...
For example, while the poor Irish were starving to death, unable to grow even a few potatoes, the wealthy Irish landowners grew high quality wheat and grazed cattle on luscious grass, and they exported their produce to England, Europe and America rather than relieve their fellow Irishmen's suffering. Meanwhile, the Irish Earls prevented the English Parliament from doing anything about it.
Virtually every "uprising" had fellow Irishmen as their targets and victims. The Irish Civil War, for example, was a bloodier affair than the Anglo-Irish War that preceded it. "Popular" uprisings that had to be quelled by British forces can be portrayed as English oppression - and they are - but in reality, they were mostly peacekeeping efforts. Consider the British troops sent into Belfast in 1969 as neutral forces to subdue sectarian rioting. Within weeks of welcoming them, the Irish nationalists turned against them and the IRA began a campaign of terror and murder against them. At the same time, the Irish Republic's government drew up plans for a military intervention in Ulster, and gave open support to the nationalist side.
Irishman against Irishman, and both blaming the English for their inability to coexist.
After WWII, the Irish government adopted a policy of preventing Irishmen who had fought in the British Army from holding any position in a state-run enterprise or in local authorities. This came to be known as the Starvation Order. Apparently it is still in force and some ex-British soldiers are still afraid to admit their involvement.
Irishman against Irishman, again. Incidentally, I am not aware that the Starvation Order extended to those who fought on the German side!
Those are the facts, unless you can demonstrate otherwise. They are not all of the facts, as I have already pointed out, but they are significant and are generally overlooked these days. I have highlighted them because it is high time that the anti-British view that the world holds when it comes to Irish politics needs to be overturned and the record set straight. The Irish nationalists do not have the monopoly on truth in this particular issue - in fact, they are masters at distorting it.
Invincible ignorance, to my mind, is deliberately ignoring the facts when they are presented.
One needs to also keep in mind that the idea of anthropological thinking along the lines of cultural and ethnic nationalism and nation state status didn't come into being again until the middle to late 19th century (prior to that the only thing close for most Europeans was the power of the Romans).
The very same thing where a particular lord held his people in less than perfect conditions occurred pretty much uniformly throughout the known world to one extent or another and greed often played the biggest part when it often crossed the so called territorial boundaries. It was quite common for one lord to attack another on a local level if he saw any advantage too it. Irish Lords would like anyone else during the time periods predating nationalism's rise be inclined to raid their closest neighbors as well as make incursions into the nearer islands. Just as it was common for the Irish and Welsh and Scots to raid the Saxons (the later had themselves invaded from Europe) who were all in turn invaded by the Danes, etc etc.
All of which doesn't change a thing about how one groups bad guy can be another's good guy etc.
One nationalized state's cultural perceptions and preconceptions concerning any particular group (as evidenced not only by very one sided takes on history by some of the participants in this thread but also by the relationship between Arab and Jew or Irish and English etc) can take much longer than one human lifespan to change if at all.
But to think that the British Empire (or its English forebears like the Normans and Saxons etc) went blithely tromping around peacefully (while they invaded all these different peoples lands) making everyone's lives they touched the better and should instead of resisting be thanking them for it imho is almost tantamount to saying that the Jews should thank the Nazis for the Holocaust (yes I am perhaps killing the thread by including the Nazis lol) or that the American Indians should be thanking Columbus, the Colonists and all their decedents who followed.
This still doesn't mean that intelligent people shouldn't be able to see the other sides point of view as seemingly valid at least in their respected perspectives imho.
For instance...do I think the Arab people did wrong by my mother's people when they basically started a war and all but kicked us out of Lebanon where our ancestors had lived pretty much since before the Roman's destroyed the Temple of Solomon?
Why yes I do see them as in the wrong.
But I also understand that they will see it quite differently.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
I can't tell if you are ironic, or I just do not get it - ehm..
That is pretty much it. There is no valid defintion of terrorism.Quote:
All of which doesn't change a thing about how one groups bad guy can be another's good guy etc.
I was being ironic, yes. I just haven't been able to find the Irony font.Quote:
Originally Posted by thir
Let me see if I understand you correctly: it was OK for the Hibernians to raid the tribes in Caledonia, Valentia, Maxima Caesariensis, Britannia Secunda and those of south-western Britannia, because that was the norm for the time, but not for Britain to build an empire in later periods, even though that, too was the norm - I refer you to Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Austria, Spain and Portugal, for example. Do I see a double standard here?Quote:
Originally Posted by denuseri
The trouble with discussing Ireland is that it ALWAYS involves centuries of history that, in any other country, would long ago have been forgiven and forgotten, but, as I have suggested, the Irish need someone to blame for their own flawed character - and who better than England? Speak to any Irish patriot and he will claim that Ireland has been under the yoke of England for 800 years. That's his starting point, and there's not one good thing that England has done for that country ever since. To hear him, you'd think the English had nothing better to do than make the lives of Irishmen miserable.
Well, we had two empires to build and three world wars to win. We had to industrialise the world and we had to ensure free trade during the Pax Britannica.
What makes it worse is that so many of the claims are untrue, and many more are gross exaggerations.
For most of history, Britain's only interest in Ireland was to ensure that it would not be used by its enemies as a staging post for an invasion from the west. Its military adventures there were simply to expel French, Spanish or Jacobite forces that sought to use Ireland for that very purpose, or to put down violent uprisings by Irish rebels of one sort or another. Apart from that, Britain was happy to let the bogtrotters, as they called them, live out their miserable existence as they liked. There was nothing else in Ireland that interested them one little bit.
As I have said before, and no-one has yet refuted it, the trouble with the Irish is that they cannot get along with each other. It is they who oppressed their fellow countrymen, and rose up against each other: North v South, Catholic v Protestant, landowners v subsistence farmers ... and so on right up to the modern day.
So let's forget history and look at the position today. The IRA is now spent; all that remains is its political arm. It has been replaced by a smaller group, the Continuity IRA (and a small number of similar groupings) who continue to deal out death to other Irishmen. In reply, the UVF have carried out their own revenge attacks on Catholics (in between murdering other loyalists as part of an internal feud!) Do we still see one Irishman oppressing another? I think we do. Where are the British? I'll leave that open ...
Someone said I should get glasses after I suggested your previous summary of Irish history showed the Irish problems were created by Irishmen and not the British. To see the Irish as oppressed by the English in this day and age would require a very heavy rose-tint on the lenses. Even looking at the whole timeline, to believe that England has done nothing but harm to that country would be spectacular self-delusion.
Finally, my wife is an Irish Catholic. During the last half of the 20th Century, as she saw what the IRA and UVF were doing to each other, and, more importantly, to other innocent men women and children in Belfast, Londonderry and elsewhere, she and her family admitted to being ashamed to be Irish. I am descended from an orange Glaswegian who objected to my marriage for sectarian reasons, and I admit to being ashamed of what the Loyalists have done. Who could glory in what has happened there? Apart from Martin Sheen, perhaps.
Nicely put MMI
Be well IAN 2411
lol Martian I will conceed is a complete idiot. Despite portraying the President we all wish we had on TV.Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
I also agree that it is beyound deployarable that some factions strike out at the very people they claim to represent in their resistance to tyranny. But it doesnt surprise me. Americans, like the Irish did it while resisting Brittan, The Jews did it while resisting Rome, The Russians did it while resisting Germany...the list goes on and on and on.
And I am quite certian...everyone on all sides in any of these deplorable engadgments...thought their side and their's alone was the right one.
Neither England nor Ireland was the bad Guys, because the IRA was the bad guys. The Irish Americans knew damn all about their countries politics, because most were too young to have been born there. They only knew the propaganda that the political wing of the IRA told them. However, it was enough to get a good proportion of Irish Americans, and that proportion I will call thick American Mick’s to part with their cash. People like Martin Sheen. So that the political beggars could fill the IRA coffers, and in turn they could kill more of the British Soldiers and even more of their kin.
Ask any British soldier that was like me in the province in the 60s and 70s and they will tell you what they thought of the American Irish and their miss-guided beliefs and money. It is our buddies that have now gone to the American wars to die at the side of the American soldiers at the America’s request. I, sure as hell, don’t know why, because some American Irish are still hell bent in trying to justify the IRAs blood thirsty quest in killing their own people. A person has to have been there during and after the troubles to know anything about the politics of Northern Ireland.
One other thing that the Americans always seem to forget, whether it is on purpose or not I have no idea. There are no English in Northern Ireland except the soldiers, the people that live there are all Irish. They have the right to chose by a majority vote whether to stay in the United Kingdom or be part of Southern Ireland. There is no part of the Good Friday Agreement that was signed by all parties that states the IRA have a final vote, because that is what their political arm is for.
If they voted out of the UK tomorrow I doubt very much that the UK would do anything to stop it taking place. The province has been a thorn in our side for hundreds of years, and our troops would leave at the drop of a hat. However, don’t think for one minute that if the UK had a security alert like the Cuba/Russian problem that the Americans had. Then you can bet your ass that the British Soldier would be back with the dropping of another hat.
Be well IAN 2411
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Originally Posted by MMI
Let me see if I understand you correctly: it was OK for the Hibernians to raid the tribes in Caledonia, Valentia, Maxima Caesariensis, Britannia Secunda and those of south-western Britannia, because that was the norm for the time, but not for Britain to build an empire in later periods, even though that, too was the norm - I refer you to Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Austria, Spain and Portugal, for example. Do I see a double standard here?
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Originally Posted by denuseri
Then you must have meant, in your previous post, that people behaved in a way they considered appropriate at the time. That is probably a truism. The Hibernians did as Hibernians were wont to, the British did so too.
So, if, today, Irish terrorists behave in the way they are expected to, no-one needs to comment?
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Originally Posted by MMI
The trouble with discussing Ireland is that it ALWAYS involves centuries of history that, in any other country, would long ago have been forgiven and forgotten, but, as I have suggested, the Irish need someone to blame for their own flawed character - and who better than England?
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Originally Posted by denuseri
I don’t really understand that comment, but I’m sure I’m not trying to say what you suggest. What I am saying is that the Irish have never, at any time in history (so far as I can see) been at peace with each other: there has always been some division between them which has justified one side or other taking violent action against the other. They have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.
From England’s point of view, Ireland has never had much value, but it has posed a threat. During the Troubles, the majority of English would have been happy to see Ireland sink under the sea. Nevertheless, we sent in our young men to die trying to stop them from killing each other, while the Republic gave succour to the IRA and its government contemplated military action in Ulster. In other words, Eire considered going to war with Britain in support of a rebellious minority, no doubt, with the ultimate aim of incorporating British territory into its own – against the majority will of the people living there.
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Originally Posted by MMI
Speak to any Irish patriot and he will claim that Ireland has been under the yoke of England for 800 years. That's his starting point, and there's not one good thing that England has done for that country ever since. To hear him, you'd think the English had nothing better to do than make the lives of Irishmen miserable.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
But the Irish patriot is wrong by saying it: he is perpetuating an untruth that everyone seems to be more than willing to believe, simply because he says it with a touraluralay in his voice.
In your scenario, you appear to be describing a feud between a two Irish lords, where one of them invites an English ally to help him in his attempts to subdue the other. One Irishman oppressing another again. And quite normal behaviour at the time. Why should the Irish patriot comment?
More to the point, why the fuck is he still blaming us for something that happened hundreds of years ago? I’ll tell you why: to justify the terrorism that continues to this day.
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Originally Posted by MMI
Well, we had two empires to build and three world wars to win. We had to industrialise the world and we had to ensure free trade during the Pax Britannica.
Quote:
Originally Posted by denuseri
I’m not saying we were ever “nice”. We just had better things to do than trying to think of things that would make Paddy cross.
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Originally Posted by MMI
What makes it worse is that so many of the claims are untrue, and many more are gross exaggerations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by denuseri
As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.
Even I have only to quoted documented facts, not simply things that I would like to have happened.
As you have mentioned out twice now, it is important not to have a closed mind on this subject. Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.
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Originally Posted by MMI
For most of history, Britain's only interest in Ireland was to ensure that it would not be used by its enemies as a staging post for an invasion from the west. Its military adventures there were simply to expel French, Spanish or Jacobite forces that sought to use Ireland for that very purpose, or to put down violent uprisings by Irish rebels of one sort or another. Apart from that, Britain was happy to let the bogtrotters, as they called them, live out their miserable existence as they liked. There was nothing else in Ireland that interested them one little bit.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
I think my “perspective” is closer to the truth than that the notion that all Irish rebels were noble heroes struggling against England as an infinitely evil oppressor. Why should I admit otherwise?The exploitation was by one Irishman against another. Simple as that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
As I have said before, and no-one has yet refuted it, the trouble with the Irish is that they cannot get along with each other. It is they who oppressed their fellow countrymen, and rose up against each other: North v South, Catholic v Protestant, landowners v subsistence farmers ... and so on right up to the modern day.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
Is it justifiable in any way to allow the people in any part of one’s dominions to rise up against each other, and to kill them – men, women and children – without trying to restore law and order? The alternative is chaos, civil strife and foreign interference.
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Originally Posted by MMI
So let's forget history and look at the position today.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
Do some history, then. Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people and bringing them under her heel. Cromwell is probably a good start. Set that number against the times British troops were sent to quell civil disorder or to eject foreign invaders and Pretenders to the Crown.
At least we’ll be having a debate with facts on both sides then.
(And it’s cruel of you to even hint you’d blow me when you know you never would!)
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Originally Posted by MMI
The IRA is now spent; all that remains is its political arm. It has been replaced by a smaller group, the Continuity IRA (and a small number of similar groupings) who continue to deal out death to other Irishmen. In reply, the UVF have carried out their own revenge attacks on Catholics (in between murdering other loyalists as part of an internal feud!) Do we still see one Irishman oppressing another? I think we do. Where are the British? I'll leave that open ...
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Originally Posted by denuseri
Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.
IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE DISRUPTING LAW AND ORDER WHO ARE IN THE WRONG, NOT THE LAWFUL AUTHORITIES THAT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEM. England cannot be blamed if Ireland is stuffed full of blind bigots whose only method of protest is to murder innocent bystanders and call themselves patriots.
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Originally Posted by MMI
Someone said I should get glasses after I suggested your previous summary of Irish history showed the Irish problems were created by Irishmen and not the British. To see the Irish as oppressed by the English in this day and age would require a very heavy rose-tint on the lenses. Even looking at the whole timeline, to believe that England has done nothing but harm to that country would be spectacular self-delusion.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
It is high time that responsibility for the Irish situation was shared properly. England has acted harshly with regard to the Irish at times, but no harsher than it has acted towards others at different times. It was acting in accordance with the normal standards of behaviour of the day. Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.
Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.
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Originally Posted by MMI
Finally, my wife is an Irish Catholic. During the last half of the 20th Century, as she saw what the IRA and UVF were doing to each other, and, more importantly, to other innocent men women and children in Belfast, Londonderry and elsewhere, she and her family admitted to being ashamed to be Irish. I am descended from an orange Glaswegian who objected to my marriage for sectarian reasons, and I admit to being ashamed of what the Loyalists have done. Who could glory in what has happened there? Apart from Martin Sheen, perhaps.
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Originally Posted by denuseri
As you know, I consider the American Rebellion was just as illegal as the Irish rebellions. That, too was led by criminals and exploiters for their own enrichment rather than for the good of America in general. And just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!
There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.
I don’t think this discussion can go much further unless and until people shake off the idea that the IRA was fine body of fresh young men who marched nobly towards Dublin in the Green, where the bayonets flashed, and rifles crashed, to the echoes of a Thompson gun. Not everything the Irish did was justified by England’s existence. IF they ever were that noble, those days are long gone. What we have now is a gang of psychopathic bigots, drug dealers, pimps and extortionists.
Oh I never said they were all sunshine and parades.Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
From my point of view....niether side is.
You are correct, because he is worse in the eyes of the British soldier and their kin. He is the Type of disgusting filth that was filling the coffers of the IRA so that they could go and kill the British soldier. He can only be excelled by another set of garbage called J F Kennedy and the rest of his Irish American breed that are most probably still doing the same. Kennedy really was a big spender and it was a known fact that he sympathised with the Irish. I just wonder how deep his hand went into his pocket to show them real sympathy. The trouble with the American Presidents is they all want to be Irish, even Paddy O’Bama, what a fucking joke. Obama jumped from his close relations being a terrorist in Kenya to another bunch of terrorists on the shores of the UK. I’ll bet even the Russians had a good laugh at that, the English are still laughing. I wonder if Paddy O'Bama knows that there are a few Kenyans in el Qeada, we already know that there are a few IRA training them?Quote:
Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?
MMI...denu....your arguments are old hat, because you are going over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over the same bit of history. To be honest, it has damn all to do with Martin Sheen and his disgusting relations.
Be well IAN 2411
Ian
At least we are trying to exchange points of view (although each of us thinks the other is irredeemably biased and his/her arguments flawed). It's better than a foul tirade of angry bile.
Who knows ... one or other of us might suddenly get a new perspective on matters which, once articulated on these boards, will solve the whole Anglo/Irish problem forever? But if it's too tedious for you, skip over it. That's what everyone else is doing.
Den
I'm too tired to reply tonight, so I'll return to it another time.
There is nothing angry about it, and since when has truth been bile?Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
Get real, so you are going to do in this thread what the English and Irish have been trying to do for hundreds of years. LMAO.Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
Its not very nice to know that people laugh at your post, MMI, is it? And why the hell should I skip over posters that have hijacked a thread for their own ends that have nothing to do with the OP. We can all read and copy from history books but I stoped doing that in high school. I wont skip over you, but I will stay out of the thread because it has lost its way.
Be well IAN 2411
No, I’m sure he isn’t, but I wasn’t referring specifically to him in my previous post. And in any case, I don’t believe you have answered my point by making such a dismissive remark. Your contention is that if people behaved in accordance with the times they lived in, they are not to be criticised. Thus the Irish are not to be criticised for their murderous raids on mainland Britain during the Roman occupation.Quote:
Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?
Yet, although many European nations - and even the United States of America – have built empires in the more recent past, Britain alone is to be faulted for doing so.
As for Martin Sheen, I think Ian’s remarks above will suffice.
I agree that we have different perspectives, but I don’t think my views can be summarily disregarded simply because they do not fit in with your uncritical absorbtion of the American/Irish Nationalist version of history; and I am quite unsure that your experience of violence in Lebanon enables you to empathise with Irish Republicans. (Why not with the Loyalists, who are also Irish?)Quote:
Which is how it appears from your perspective...just like Hezbollah justifies its actions and beliefs...the only perspective that matters is their own...Quote:
[The Irish] have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.
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I am sure Brittan is just like the Jedi coming in to free Naboo...all peace loving and only wanting to help and the bad meanie Irish are then just like the Sith...at least from the English perspective. I am sure that perspective is flipped around for the Irish however.
You tell me you’re a historian, yet here you are comparing British Imperialism and Irish Nationalists with a Hollywood film! I can assure you, the problem is far more complicated than that and deserves to be considered more thoughtfully. I note you have already made a similar point earlier in this thread.
The first thing you need to understand is that the problem is not what the British did to the Irish, but what the Irish did – and are still doing - to each other. When you look at things from that perspective, you will see that Britain’s actions are almost irrelevant.
I’m not aware of this incident. Perhaps you can enlighten me?Quote:
All it takes is one soldier getting caught pissing on a dead body of an occupied countries "terrorist/freedom fighter) and ten plus years of goodwill goes out the window like so much slop.
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Why do African Americans, Jews, People of India, Arabs, etc etc all still complain or comment on what their "oppressors" did too them so many years ago? I will tell you why: Perceptions of injustices resonate just as strongly sometimes as the actual acts that fostered them in the first place real or imagined.
Perceptions of injustice can be – and in this instance, I submit, are – self-delusional; and it would be wrong to pander to such self-deception when trying to understand history.
As the Irish version of history is one-sided and in many places fallacious, I wonder where the sophistry truly resides.Quote:
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As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.
No more so than I accuse any other nation of such fickle historical sophistry when it suits them or they don't like the way some thing about themselves or their ancestors sounds. Remember our discussions on the American Revolution? Brittan taught their version to you and your peers in school...while American children were taught their own version. Who had the "truth"...who had the "right" of it? Did Herodotus malign the Persians in favor of his countrymen in his works? Did Livy favor the Romans over all others in his histories?
The British educational system – at least when I was at school – spent perhaps one lesson on the American Revolution - two or three if you count the colonial period and events in Canada: it was just one small theatre in a world-wide war and not important enough to bother justifying or apologising for.
But this is a side-issue and we don’t want to start that argument all over again!
No-one is allowed to forget the Nationalist view, so that particular question doesn’t arise. They even glory in their atrocities. When, on the other hand, have you heard anyone seriously argue against the Irish “Truth”?Quote:
Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.
Nor the Irish cause either right?. Not if one is to truly be objective that is. Which I doubt is happening when we discuss things that are very close to one's home. (not mine I was born in beyrut..its the Jew/Arab thingy that should strike close too me)
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Your opinion is your opinion. I just think its a bit biased is all.
… and therefore invalid? What makes you think that? Simply because I interpret historical events differently from you?
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Enviroment imho shapes us in some ways.
Is that an oblique way of making Britain responsible for things like the Plague or potato blight?
Never simply to oppress, then, but to help or protect Ireland, or to prevent Ireland becoming a staging post for England’s enemies.Quote:
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Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people ...
The sole reason? There is never a sole reason. But it has happened several times. Starting with a series of Norman right on through Elizabethian times. The reasons given by the invaders however...will be documented as self justifing however...that much is pretty much garenteed. Oh I was invited to "help" but now that I am here I am staying...like it or not etc.
I’ll make it simpler: when was oppression of the Irish people one of the stated aims of any British invader?
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I ... quoted like a whole page of historical notes way earlier in the thread. I just think you were rather subjectivly one sided in your interpetation is all, which is understadable.
Yes, I read and commented upon those notes. I said they did not demonstrate English oppression, but, rather, the opposite. Instead of patronising me by “understanding” my prejudices, please point out the events mentioned that clearly demonstrate England invaded Ireland to suppress the population as a whole (as opposed to rebels in particular).
So why do you doubt and deny it?Quote:
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Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.
I am certian that from the Crown's point of view thats precisely whats going on.
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Seriously...why do you think the bigots are being so bloody bigoted?
Because the other bigots are killing them! One Irishman against another.
No. From a detached and dispassionate point of view.Quote:
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Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.
At least from England's point of view.
If you deny it, explain?Quote:
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Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.
To the English it certiantly does.
They replaced a benign tyranny (if you must call it tyranny) with a weak confederacy, run by self-interested smugglers, land-grabbers and other disreputable blackguards, that began its life by reneging on the first international treaty it signed, and planned to turn on its allies (the French and Spanish – who won the American war for them) in order to take over New France and Florida once the English had been ejected.Quote:
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… just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!
Yeah must be why they came up with that nifty new form of government that worked so dam well to limit tyranny and all instead of declaring themselves pirate kings (at least for a time...its a bit tattered now days if you ask me).
As for “new”, what about the Licchavi, or Rome or Lucca?
I would say the same thing: there is a difference.Quote:
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There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.
If the shoe were on the other foot I wonder what you would say then?
Ian
The bile is not in the facts you use, but the way you use them.
These topics have a habit of meandering, but I don't think it has strayed from the OP - but you don't own the thread anyway. It has just moved in a direction you disapprove of. If that's the case, bring it back in track instead of whingeing or sulking off.
Otherwise, I'm glad my comments have amused you. I hope it helps you be well.
Your coments always amuse me MMI. I might just do exactly what you say and I know I dont own the thread, but I will ask you a serious question.
What makes two American people or other than English/Irish [I asume your are both American and I will stand to be corrected]think they can work out the whys and wheres of English/Irish politics over the troubles, when the English/Irish themselves dont know the answer? It is all very well looking at the history books and quoting whats there, but what input of your own ideas have you arrived at so far.
You have both clouded your posts with known history that is almost imposible to define your inputs from what you have learned from the history books. I have yet to figure out how the hell to quote your work to question it because of this crazy way you go about talking to each other in your own little black blob. Then again maybe that makes me stupid for being like the majority in not being good at IT.
Be well IAN 2411
A PS for you MMI, Go to Northern Ireland, and come back with nail hols in your body, and then talk to me about not writing about the IRA without some depth of feeling.
What an excellent question. What, I wonder, made Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, and Kennedy travel to Ireland? Why did Carter "internationalise" the Troubles by issuing a policy statement on Northern Ireland, when the situation in Northern Ireland was a UK domestic affair? I don't know, but maybe it's because many Americans have close links with Ireland, even if they have a misguided understanding of the problems there.
To suggest that nobody can make any valid contribution to this problem by discussing it is the language of the gunman or the bomber. I know you're ex-army, but you don't want to get trapped down that particular road. The only outcome will be more deaths and deeper hatred (if that's possible); but if Martin Sheen is, by any chance, reading this thread, maybe he'll see there was never any glory in what the IRA did, and reconsider his earlier comments about his uncle.
As for original input, aren't you expecting a lot? However, judging by the reaction from several posters here when I said the nub of the Irish problem is that the Irish themselves, not the British, have always been oppressors of their own people, I expressed an idea not previously encountered by them.
So is Collins a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a freedom fighter? Or a terrorist? I mean isn't that the man and the IRA of that time period too which Mr Sheen was referring? He was quoted as having made his statements during a show about his ancestors history etc right?
How I like to reply with a quote:
Click the reply with quote key,
then I type what I want and make it a different color at various places between the text that is copied into the box and make sure to type something outside the quotes at the bottom.
How MMI does it pulling quote within quote I have no idea lol
Sorry is this is further off topic for you Ian but MMI asked me some questions so I being submissive and all will attempt to answer them. My post before this one I hope will receive some clarification since I went back to the OP and re-read it to see if I somehow missed the boat.
Seriously is you were born and raised in Belfast and raised to believe that your father and mother and brothers etc were fighting for your independence from opression...how would you really feel?Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
A day in the life of the British Para, 1967-74
Get up 6am, do two hours of security road blocks at random and then patrol the surrounding countryside in open top land-rover until mid day.
During the afternoon patrol the protestant area of Belfast, stop to talk to the locals. Union flags in most windows. Red hand of Ulster flags painted on the end of terraced houses. The protestant community are pleased to see you patrolling their estates? I think not. They hate the British soldier as much as the Catholics in Bally Murphy.
“Do you want a cup of tea my dear?” A woman asks.
“Yes says the NCO, and a few of the section have the tea thinking they are safe. They think the same as the Americans that these people are English. They are not they were born in Northern Ireland and that makes them dangerous. The section finishes drinking their tea and walk off carrying on with business.
The section is told by the radio operator that a fight has broken out in Bally Murphy, the sections turf. They jump in the two vehicles and drive off to the location. They are met with a bombardment of children and women throwing stones and bottles. The section jump out of the vehicles cock weapons and take up defensive positions waiting for the real show of force. It never happens but the stone throwers have disappeared, but in place walking towards the section is a crowd. These are the real deal, men and boys spoiling for trouble and outnumbering the section. The radio operator calls for back-up they are outnumbered and outgunned, somewhere among that two hundred restless men is one lone shooter waiting to get his chance. The section waits and hopes the back-up will arrive fast as this is not looking to good. The British soldier only has live rounds to fire at the crowd and they will never be used.
Back-up arrives and section withdraws back to base.
Just before meal half the section doubles up in pain and doctor arrives [Arsenic poisoning.] Yes that good old cup of tea the friendly protestant’s gave the soldier had powdered glass mixed with the sugar. The part of the section which is only five men that never had the tea are about to do roaming night patrols in Belfast City.
Eleven pm, suspicious man near Match Factory at end of M1 and the half section goes out to investigate. While investigating a shot is fired at the section and as they hit the ground in defensive positions a nail bomb is thrown. The radio operator is lucky this time as the nails only killed his radio...the next time he will feel pain. There were no other injuries but the section has been informed that another section of soldiers has apprehended an IRA suspect just north of the Match Factory running away from a suspected explosion. Clear the area and leave for base arriving two am. Flop on bed fully dressed, must be awake at six for more road blocks at random.
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Not bad for one day’s work, poisoned by the Protestant’s, stoned by the Catholics , and damn near killed by the IRA. The whole lot of them hated the British Soldier. While walking through the Protestant estate we were stopping their Para military from actively doing their clandestine work. By being in the Catholic Bally Murphy we were bait for the bigger rioting real deal. They knew we would send for back-up and it was the back-up that would get the shooter. The IRA bomber, well he was the only one that could be respected because he was the enemy. He was not just the enemy of the British, the Soldier, but he was an enemy to the Irish people both Protestant and Catholic and both sides of the border.
If the Irish Americans knew this would it have made any difference, probably not because they would say it was English propaganda? They would believe their extended kin that they knew damn all about because they wanted to be part of a cause.
I will say that the TRA started out at the beginning as a self appointed freedom fighter, but somewhere along the long trail they lost their way. The IRA graduated into terrorists and no longer has respect for the cause they are fighting. There is no cause now since the Good Friday Agreement, and once you offer your services to train others, [el Qaeda] then you are no longer a soldier but a terrorist mercenary.
It is just that I find it strange that the Americans still think that the English are still the oppressors in Northern Ireland, because we have a military presence. The strangest thing about the little story above that did take place, is the fact that for the last hundred or so years. The British were not there to protect the Protestants and Unionists. The British Soldiers were there to stop the Protestants and Unionists from annihilating the minority in Northern Ireland....The Catholics. [Remember the powdered glass]?
I hear what you’re saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
Be well IAN 2411
If what you say is what the American Government was thinking, denu; then the Americans had not read their history properly, because the British got their ass kicked there. A few hundred years later the Russians got their ass kicked also. Looking at the way things are going at the moment the British are still getting our ass kicked, but at least this time we are not on our own.Quote:
Oh that would never be the stated claim at least not officially we all know that. Most invaders want to be seen as liberators or protectors if the people they invade. (Note how America has followed our British forbear’s example in the Middle East during our invasions there)
The British could not pack up and leave, and until it is a United Ireland I doubt that they ever will. The IRA started something they could never win, because the majority of the population in Northern Ireland where Protestants. All the time the loyalists held the governing power and supposedly wanted to be part of the UK, the soldiers would stay. One of the reasons was because of the Protestant Para Military being in a better position with many more soldiers in the correct place than the IRA.Quote:
Oh personally I fully agree both sides should have put away their toys and went home like 50 years ago or never started fighting to begin with after the peace Collins helped make with the British. I understand the British argument for continued occupation, I also understand their opposition...though considering the resolve of the people wanting one united Ireland free of occupancy by outsiders and all the trouble its caused I must say that someone on both sides of the peace table dropped the ball in Collins day or at the very least lacked foresight.
If the soldiers left Northern Ireland the Protestants would overwhelm the Catholics proclaiming Northern Ireland their own. They would then UK that theirs was the right under the majority rule. However, the British Soldier where not going to leave at any price. Make no mistake there would have been a blood bath, and then the British would have been accused of failing the Catholics. The right dishonorable Ian Paisley came very close to stating that very fact so many times, and he was as much of a pain in the ass to the peace treaty as the political arm of the IRA.
Paisley was an instigator of violence and was disliked almost as much as the IRA by the British Soldier. He coveted his place in the British Parliament and used his position to cover his own illegal membership of the protestant Para Military. To be factual he also had a lot of blood on his hands, making him no better or worse than Martin McGuiness. Paisley, never wanted peace, and that’s why he was forever shouting his mouth off at every opportunity. It was to instigate more violence by giving speeches that had double meanings.
When Paisley dies, the term Reverend will be of little use to him as he forfeited the right to hold that status. He and McGuiness can shout at each other while they stoke the fires of hell.
When in the Province I attended as many Protestant riots as I did Catholic, and we did as many house searches in the Protestant areas as we did in the Catholic. The Irish were more of a danger to themselves and their kin and other Irish, than the British soldier could ever be on a bad day. It was the Irish that were fighting the war between themselves, and the British soldier stayed there to make sure they couldn’t.
Be well IAN 2411
"A Day in the Life of the British Para 1967 - 74"
If this site still had a "Thank-you" button, I'd use it now. Apart from showing the unenviable position the British soldier found himself in, it demonstrates beyond argument that the Irish are factional, and no one faction can live with another: one Irishman against another. It also shows how they blame the English for what they are doing to themselves.
I feel a little churlish asking this, but do you still advocate more military action against the Irish, until CIRA is destroyed (and UVF too)?Quote:
Originally Posted by IAN 2411
You have made the same point as I have been trying to make, but you have done it much more succintly.Quote:
Originally Posted by IAN 2411
No doubt about it: he was evil. He was also unlucky enough to be dumped on by his own side, but no sympathy here. Casts a different light on deValera, though!Quote:
Originally Posted by denuseri
As for the rest of your posts, can I ask for an extension before responding?
There is no need, the IRA of any type are extinct along with the UVF. There might be a handful of these hardliners left and it is now up to the Northern Ireland police to find them and bring to justice. They are not freedom fighters of any type now, just racketeers, thugs, murderers and thieves, giving protection through stealth. Their flow of money from the USA has almost expended and dried up, and even the American Irish that gave most of their money to their coffers has dried up. [I hope]Quote:
Originally Posted by MMI
The soldiers in Northern Ireland are not there to fight the IRA, UVF, UDA, UDR, Irish or criminals. They are there for show, and to tell the Irish factions that if they don’t toe the line with the Good Friday Agreement, they can be deployed once more on the streets. They are a warning of intent until such times as Ireland sort out their differences.
People such as Paisley, McGuiness and Adams, are all hard liners and hard core leaders of fighting factions. They have no right to be in the positions they are in, because for Northern Ireland to move forward with the rest of the world they need peace keepers at the helm not killers of their own kind.
The British do not fight the IRA we protect ourselves from them, as if they were any other terrorist unit. Their cause is no more but they are too stupid to see that, and their supporters are hard line thugs and felons and in their pocket. I know from being over there that when the Provisional IRA had a rally most of the crowd had been told to be there or else. Nothing has changed because the same is still taking place, and will do until the Irish police arrest all the men in balaclavas and send them to prison. It is not down to the soldier now, as it is for the Northern Irish to prove they have come of age to be left on their own. Until Ireland becomes a whole once more the British presence in military form will always be there.
A quick answer....You cannot destroy political ideals with a show of force.Quote:
do you still advocate more military action against the Irish, until CIRA is destroyed (and UVF too)?
Be well IAN 2411