# Potential IRA support for Northern Alliance

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 4, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479 "2001-11-04T22:46:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![brido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@brido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brido)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479/1 "2001-11-04T22:46:02Z")

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Following the IRA’s belated agreement to begin decomissioning of weapons, would it not be worthwhile for them to donate their, now presumably obselete, American funded arms to the Northern Alliance? Surely this would support both their intentions to lay down their weapons and the intentions of the ‘western world’ to overthrow the Taliban.

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2001, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479/2 "2001-11-04T23:18:37Z")

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For “American-funded” please consider revising that to “Funded by some Americans who either didn’t know any better or just flat out didn’t give a damn what the IRA was doing with them.”

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**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2001, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479/3 "2001-11-05T07:26:46Z")

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Actually what I wonder is why they aren’t using the IRA’s semtex to blow up the British military installations in Armagh. Kill two birds with one stone.

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**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2001, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479/4 "2001-11-06T14:59:44Z")

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Very poor quality control on these terrorist explosives, though. Luckily for Birmingham.

(Yes, I know, that was the “Real IRA”, not to be confused with the real, official IRA, who are not the Official IRA… flippin’ heck, this gets complicated.)

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**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2001, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potential-ira-support-for-northern-alliance/91479/5 "2001-11-06T15:43:15Z")

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Because the Northern Alliance are probably a lot more advanced than the IRA.  
Good idea on the blowing up of the bases with the Semtex. But you know that the Uni’s would still reject that option.