Good for you. You’re uninspired and unoriginal. 2 for 2.
I think you need to stay on this question, because you answered it incorrectly. The IRA provided warnings when they planted bombs that could harm civilians. If they intended to kill civilians, you would think they would not provide warnings. Their intention was to disrupt the British economy.
Completely fucking irrelevant. They repeatedly planted bombs in areas populated solely by civilians. If anything, the law of averages guaranteed that they’d wind up killing some innocent civilian sooner or later. IRA terrorists, like all terrorists, are vile murderous inhuman cunts who deserve to be slit from stem to stern in front of their sobbing families before being dumped into a barely covered mass grave filled with the putrefying, mutilated corpses of their brothers in hate to rot away and finally provide some positive service by nourishing worms and fertilising the soil for weeds. Nothing more.
You can take any disagreements to the families of those who died at Omagh, at Kingmill, at Brighton, at Enniskillen, at Tullyallen and at Darkley Gospel Hall (to name but a FEW) because I shan’t deign to respond to someone who defends terrorists.
Perhaps. One does not need inspiration or originality to provide an accurate assessment. In this case, the U.S. and Western society need to earn the right to claim the moral high ground when interrupting the lives of people of other nations. It is a two way street. If one wnats to claim that Islamic societies need to “earn” respect, then the same is true of the so-called Christian West. Pointing out all their faults as if only they have a need to improve their position in the world is simply hubris.
Assuming it’s true, so what? Is the responsibility of the Islamic societies to police themselves magically lifted as a result? How do American actions in any way prevent a Muslim from saying “You terrorists claim to be working on my behalf, but all you do is make the situation worse, so I’m going to shut you down.”
Saudi internal security has for the last few decades been pretty casual about arresting and torturing perceived enemies of the state. I hope now that they’ve been attacked by terrorists, they’ll be hooking up the electrodes to the genitals of some people who really deserve it.
No, it’s perfectly relevant. Why did you think the IRA phoned in these warnings? They didn’t give warning when they attached the British Military. They were obviously trying to avoid any civilian casualties.
My deepest sympathies to those that have lost their lives as a result of the British occupation of Ireland. Hopefully, the IRA will never again see the need to plant anymore bombs.
What is your definition of a terrorist organization?
Personally, I think it’s a way of shifting blame for their murderous actions onto others. If the phone call isn’t taken seriously by the RUC, then it’s their fault our bomb shredded those schoolchildren, not ours.
Rationalizing one’s own violence is a pretty common trait among terrorists, I’ve noticed, and rationalizing one’s own bullshit extends at least as far as this message board.
Also what aboutmthe Protestant civilians in Northern Ireland that the IRA shot in tit-for-tat killings?
Or while were on the subject as it was in the news recently, the Irish farmer who they tortured and murdered after he reported suspicious going-ons on his land to the Irish Garda.
Why should Islamic societies be held to a higher standard than Western societies? It is the responsibility of the citizens of so-called democratic nations to keep their governmentrs from imposing dictatorships on people with weaker militaries.
I am not suggesting that Muslim nations have no responsibility to “clean up their act.” I agree that they should. I am noting that it is completely hypocritical to whine about how terrible they are, living under the governments that we often gave them, when we have been no bettter than they have. Claiming that they have to “earn” respect when we have not “earned” any respect is hypocrisy. I think we ought to stop our crimes as we insist they stop theirs.
Ah, but I’m not whining, and saying that I am whining doesn’t dispel any of my arguments.
Americans haven’t earned any respect? Sure, they have. I’m not even American and the idea that they’re earned no respect is patently absurd to me.
Your “we” as in the governments “we often gave them” is a bit broad, since the English share as large or larger a role than the Americans in forming the modern borders of the Middle East.
In any event, the fundamentalist and repressive (and terrorist-supporting) government of Iran was strictly home-grown, so that instance at the very least is the responsibility of the locals.
I’m waiting to see if the Americans can “give” the Iraqis a reasonably stable and progressive government that will crank out massive oodles of oil in the best capitalist tradition and cause Saudi Arabia and Iran (and possibly Libya) to suffer complete economic collapse. I’d get a certain shadenfreude thrill out of such a turn of events, except I wouldn’t be very shaden about it.
Actually, it was the Loyalist terrorists that were known for killing innocent civilians in tit-for-tat executions. You must really hate them. Could you give me a few examples of the IRA doing this? I can’t think of any.
I am not familiar with this incident. That is reprehensible. However, one incident does not make a terrorist organization.
Several years ago, an American soldier raped a Japanese women. Would that make the U.S. Army a terrorist organization? I would think not.
Please remember that I am claiming the IRA is not a terrorist organization. I’ve am not claiming that they are saints.
Notice my continued use of “Western” (not exclusively “U.S.”) in my posts.
The Iran regime came to power as a direct result of the majority of the populace wishing to overthrow one of the most repressive dictators in the region–the one installed by the U.S.
Noted, and I’ll be more careful about that in future.
Oh, yeah, they really showed those naughty Americans a thing or two about setting up repressive dictatorships. I mean, if you’re going to repress your population, you may as well do it right.
I don’t buy the “majority” part, though. Regime change can actually be done by a relatively small fraction of the poulation, if they are loud and determined enough. That’s actually what I’m hoping they’ll do now when it comes to doing something positive like rooting out terrorists and ensuring personal freedom and forming lasting peace treaties. I know it’s a lot harder than seizing an embassy staff and holding them for over a year, but that’s life.
Do you realize that the IRA also provided codes to authenticate their warnings? For an organization that was just interested in shifting the blame, as you speculated, they sure seemed to go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
You’re saying that any organization that rationalizes its violence is a terrorist organization?
What about when they shot 11 Protestants in 1976 at Kingsmill, after stopping a bus that was taking them home from work at a textiles factory:
http://www.radley.org.uk/OR/OldRadleian/2001/brits.html
Ther’s a broief bit about the killing of the farmer in this article on ‘stakeknife’:
No, we’re saying people who kill civilians are terrorists.
Didn’t you ever hear the song Sunday, Bloody Sunday? As it says, BOTH sides are being assholes. Like Bono pointed out-FUCK the revolution! What’s the “glory” in killing old age pensioners? Or dragging men out of their houses in the middle of the night and slaughtering them right in front of their wife and kids?
Where was the “honor” in bombing Lord Mountbaden? Did you know that his sixteen year old grandsons, twins, were on that yacht at the time? One survived and was severely injured, but the other one was killed.
That’s terrorism, as far as I’m concerned.
Yes most of the tit-for-tat shootings were carriued out by the loyalist paramiltaries and I have extreme contempt for them too. But the IRA targetted civilians on many occasions too.
Like most British people I don’t really care what happens to Northern Ireland, their all as bad as each other out there, but what would you have the British government do? Remember Northern Ireland was given independance with the rest of Ireland in 1921, but voted to stay in the Union. Also there is a Unionist majority in NI, you have to take into account the wishes of the majority.