One theme which I find extremely disturbing in this debate is the “yes but that was then” argument.
We still pursue Nazi war criminals; I’m damned sure no-one is going to let bin Laden off the hook in a few years time just because he might not still be an “active” terrorist.
And no, I don’t have a particular barrow to push in respect of either “the Troubles” or the Israel/Palestine situation.
What I will say - as a citizen of a country which has harboured more than one Nazi war criminal - is that I don’t care how bloody long a person has been in my country and lived an exemplary life after having committed atrocities of one kind or another elsewhere.
I believe there is no statute of limitations on murder in the US. Nor should there be any kind of “statute of limitations” in international law for those who have committed, incited, funded, or otherwise encouraged acts of terrorism. - whether they come from my country or yours.
That the contemporary IRA is seeking reconcilation in no way excuses the past actions of certain individuals who in times past held influence within it, anymore than Germany’s current status within the EU excuses the actions the actions made by individuals in her name in the past.
Bring the individuals to justice.
We simply cannot sit here and say “we excuse these individuals because they no longer hold influence and it would rock the boat to pursue them”.
We wouldn’t even contemplate making that argument in respect of Nazi Germany or Serbia.
There have been wrongs - and horrific ones - committed by both sides in both the ME and Ireland. Surely part of the peace process must include acknowledging those wrongs and punishing those responsible for them no matter WHICH side they supported.
To me - saying “but this person is NO LONGER a terrorist” is like saying “this person has reformed so don’t give him the death penalty”.
So what you’re saying is that from your point of view, the GFI is repellant.
Coming from an Englishman who’s experienced many years of anti-IRA propaganda (in terms of balance primarily, not necessarily factually incorrect), I have to say that that attitude is pointless. If you think the way to stop people being blown up is to take the simplistic moral high ground, fine, good for you. But years of experience has taught us in the UK that the demonisation of terrorists as pure evil, refusal to negotiate, refusal to even attempt to understand why these crimes were committed and a total pig-headed refusal to see that there is more than one point of view leads to, well, thirty years of violence.
Andy, as you must have already observed, many of the people who have participated in this thread actually live in Ireland and live with the consequences of both good and bad decisions which have been made by both sides in the past.
Actually, if you have read my posts in respect of other terrorist actions - and particularly in respect of Sept 11 last year - you’ll find that I don’t believe any nation has the right to claim any kind of “moral high ground”.
Demonising terrorists? Don’t look to me. Look to George W, and Tony Blair, and John Howard.
Who have I “demonised”? Depending on your viewpoint in any of these conflicts and whether you were the “victor” who got to write the history, the attribution of “right” or “wrong” is for the most part arbitrary and assigned by the side which “won”.
Nonetheless, most democracies at least ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of the “rule of law”, even if they do not implement it; most acknowledge that there are specific “rules of engagement” which apply to civil and international conflicts.
I have - I think - quite clearly stated that IMHO “a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist” and no matter in which deity’s or state’s or nation’s name they act, they should be INDIVIDUALLY responsible for the consequences of their actions,
BTW - 30 years of violence? Perhaps you need to do some reading up on your own history. The Catholic/Protestant split - and the consequent Republic vs Home Rule movements - started a long time before me, my parents or even my grandparents were born.
The residents of Manchester have also had to live with these consequences in recent years, so I don’t think you can imply dismissal of Andy’s viewpoint thus.
Do you apply this to state-sponsored terror, too? Do you hold the individuals responsible for their actions, or the political leaders who ordered them to do what they did. Where do you draw the line?
The amnesty from punishment for state and other criminal and terrorist actions is what, IMO, prevented a bloodbath in South Africa via the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This model is now being repeated in “South Africa, Rwanda, and Bosnia-Herzgovinia… Latin America.” The approach, while flying in the face of emotional response of the victims and onlookers, not to mention standard judicial procedure, seems to be the only one where an honest recall, and hence reconciliation, of politically-motivated crimes is encouraged. A witch hunt would necessarily cause witnesses and perpetrators to instigate cover-ups.
I wasn’t intending to be rude. I believed you were being obtuse because your reply to one of my posts seemed to deliberately ignore the point, so I called you on it. If you truly managed to miss it, then apologies - but I’d hardly go so far as to call my comments rude.
But… 2. Don’t come over all Miss Prim-and-Proper with me - go back and read your first post to this thread and see where the tone was set for calling people on perceived hidden meanings. To paraphrase you, “a baseless accusation of anti-Americanism followed by some snide, sarcy comment about a ‘hypocricy detector’ has no place in this forum. Period. I’m actually quite fucking pissed at that particular bit of nonsense.” What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Quick general point: the whole “is Sinn Fein really linked to the IRA” thing is irrelevant to this discussion. I maintain they are, and I suggest that any reasonable person could not separate the two. However - this is not important to the case in hand. A senior member of Sinn Fein was found with the terrorists in Colombia. Therefore, Sinn Fein are involved with the alleged international terrorism. That is all that matters for now.
jjimm: certainly the British government are guilty of colluding with loyalist terrorists in the past. However the past Troubles are not the issue here for two reasons: the terrorism in NI was not international terrorism, and the ringleaders from both sides are now apparantly committed to peaceful means. Even the early release of prisoners doesn’t qualify the UK government as harbouring terrorists, as these are not international terrorism, which we are supposed to be rooting out.
The issue here is current events: the IRA and Sinn Fein have been linked to international terrorism. Therefore the British government should not be supporting (or “harbouring”) them.
Like I say, the Troubles are not international terrorism - it is/was a local problem. Loyalists have not been found training an international network of killers.
No no - the provos are cooperating w.r.t. operations in Britain; the operations that seem to be going on in other parts of the world are outside of this cooperation.
Basically, it seems to me that the reason we aren’t pursuing this particular international terror groups boils down to the fact that we need them on our side. If the US decided to bomb Britain into handing over Gerry Adams for the part his men have been playing in international terrorism, you can bet we’d fight back - rather like the Taleban did, in fact, since I assume they too thought it was not a good idea to make an enemy out of a man who has operatives and supporters throughout the country.
So - a better declaration seems to be: “As long as it is not politically inconvenient to root out international terrorists, we will do it.” No matter how much some people posture, the issue is certainly not black and white.
Yes but the cases are hardly analogous: Britain has never encouraged or welcomed Adams, we have spent years doing our damndest best to put down the IRA, who have been ramped up continually by large donations very often US in origin.
Right after 11th September The Sun’s political editor wrote a column (I saved it but there is no free archive of it on the internet) which included the lines:
james, I would be surprised if any American caught your reference to Gerry Adams coming to the U.S. five or six years ago. Like that’s an issue anyone outside of Ireland and the U.K. is still talking about, or recognize the event in an unexplained one-liner about Osama Bin Laden visiting Paris? Sheesh.
And I absolutely do not back down from my assessment that your OP implicitly charges America with hypocricy. What the hell else are your rhetorical questions about Guantanamo Bay and London as the Axis of Evil doing in there, except to make the point that we’re not reacting in exactly the same way (which would be incredibly stupid in any event because the situations are not even remotely comparable)? If you want to discuss the IRA, Sinn Fein, and terrorism over Northern Ireland, what’s all the gratuitous rhetoric about rounding up Irishmen and sending them to Cuba and handing over Sinn Fein members to the U.S. I mean, really, WTF? This is an OP we’re supposed to take seriously?
We don’t need to. The Nazis and the Serbs were defeated; there was no need to compromise with them. This wasn’t the case with Ireland’s paramilitaries, who still have every ability to commit great atrocities.
The people who actually live on this island decided - by a large margin - that releasing the prisoners was a compromise worth making to prevent future atrocities, and events so far (perhaps lack of events is a better way of putting it) have vindicated that decision. Sorry, but I agree with Andy - you are taking the moral high ground by disregarding the practical consequences of your position … and you, of course, would not have to live with those consequences.
Er, and your problem with that is what, exactly?
It is quite standard in discussion of the conflict to refer to “30 years of violence”, as it was only in the last 30-odd years (it’s actually pushing 35 now, but never mind) that large-scale violence returned to the island. Prior to that were several decades of relative calm and, while of course the violence of the last 30 years has its roots in earlier violence, the proximate causes as well as effects are/ were significantly different. Andy was quite correct to describe governmental heavy-handedness as significantly responsible for the violence of the last 30 years in particular - does the word “internment” mean anything to you?
Finally, while there was something of a split between republicans and Home Rulers, I really don’t think that’s what you meant.
What part of “… as much as they’re ever going to cooperate” didn’t you understand? They can’t and won’t be totally leashed in. Britain has two choices: put up with them doing some things they shouldn’t be, or don’t and face the consequences. There is certainly a line which, if crossed, would make the second choice desirable (from a British p.o.v.) - I can’t see how training FARC members crosses that line.
Surely the Dublin and Monaghan bombings would qualify as international terrorism, under the technical definition of “international”.
If they were indeed committed with the assistance of British security force elements, and you’ll not be surprised to learn that I’m absolutely convinced that they were - then that certainly qualifies them as international terrorism, no?
True, so I guess it would be unreasonable to accuse the British government of harbouring the IRA - but we are certainly harbouring Sinn Fein, who have been implicated in this recent mess too.
This is the point: the IRA and Sinn Fein are now involved with international terrorism. Despite our grand words about ridding the world of this sort of thing out, we will not because it would be inconvenient for us if we did so. I guess it’s a case of “bugger those people in Spain who are getting bombed by ETA thanks to this IRA network - I’m all right, Jack”.
You’d need proof, not gut feeling to back this up - but if so, yes it would have technically been a case of int. terrorism too. However, this conflict is over.
The side issues are pushing away from the central issues:
Is the IRA and Sinn Fein involved with international terrorism?
Did our leaders pledge to stamp out international terrorism wherever it is found?
The answers are yes and yes. It doesn’t seem very noble to me to ignore a problem just because it doesn’t affect us personally.
The network is bombing Spanish families through ETA and - because of its links with Iranian terrorist cells - I presume Americans are being targetted too. Yet despite this, Western leaders cannot do anything because it would upset things back in the UK.
Please, please please stop implying that Sinn Fein as an organisation is knowingly commited to international terrorism. It isn’t it isn’t it isn’t. They are fully signed up to (and have fully collaborated with ) the terms of the GFA, which is more than any other party with terrorist links. The IRA are on ceasefire and have started the decomissioning process. can the same be said of the UVF/UDA or the UFF?
If you want to insist on Sinn Fein leaders being handed over for questioning, start in your own backyard and round up party officials who “knew” about well, any of the US govt. backed groups that staged coups or were involved in drug dealing or arms sales in South America.
As for Columbia, it wasn’t too long ago that the US office in Bogota was collaborating with a group of people including Cali cartel members and FARC rebels ( called Los Pepes) against the Medillin Cartel in their persuit to destroy Pablo Escobar. Will the Handlers for Delta Force be called to answer for training FARC rebels aswell?
The thing is there is no proof that either Sinn Fein of the IRA had prior knowledge of these actions.
and
So this could be a case of IRA men taking a “busmans holiday” so to speak. In which case it would be very reckless to risk the unstable peace that NI and Britian has experienced over the last few years. Now if there is evidence proving that the IRA santioned and supported this “visit” then it a different story.
A serious crack down on Sinn Fein could lead to the whole NI problem erupting again. Then we’re back to square one. Better to keep the peace and try to deal with this situation over a table than have bombs, executions and mayhem on the streets of NI and Britain.
But it would affect us personally if we didn’t ignore it (or at least if we responded to it in the manner Bush would seem to be calling for). I don’t believe that Bush meant to imply that the alliance should blithely pursue all international terrorists without regard to the consequences for its own citizens.
I’m not faulting your logic, really, but you’re demanding a foolish consistency here. Most political policies have some sort of common-sense exception. That doesn’t make the supporters of those policies hypocrites.