The ever feisty Rob responds:
>Gross over-simplification and grossly unfair to the republican movement.
It's definitely an oversimplification if you take it as a complete rundown
of the entire situation, but it was not. I wrote only to counter the idea
that was being entertained that the problem is caused by British invaders
splitting an otherwise peaceful Eire in two. I also endeavoured to explain
the source of my hatred for the IRA - basically, I think I coined it best in
my response to Mike Lorrey when I said that most reasonable people will lose
sympathy for a cause once they start blowing kids up. It is simply this.
>You omit the fact that the unionists practiced systematic discrimination
>against catholics up until the late sixties/early seventies.
Relevant to the IRA situation, but irrelevant to the points I was making. It
is important to remember that the catholic-republican and
protestant-loyalist correlation has been lost due to sickening IRA terrorist
activity which has divided the line between loyalists and republicans more
through a like/dislike for ultra-violence against innocents than anything
else.
>You omit
>the fun little festivities such as the marching season.
Again, irrelevant to my point, but I notice that you omit the orangemen -
the organisation with the most disruptive and dangerous march route, are
catholic and republican.
>You omit the nice
>guys from the UVF and UFF who are just as partial to murder and maiming of
>their opponents as the IRA.
Yep, but they never blew up any innocent members of the public, now did
they? The IRA do plenty of that - the source of their whole image problem.
> You omit the complete fuck-up by the British
>government in 1971-76 -- who, to be fair, didn't have a clue what sort of
>meat-grinder they were sticking their dick into, and who didn't realise
>that the Paratroop Regiment *weren't* trained in police and counter-
>insurgency duties.
It's beyond me that you can hold this relevant to my points.
>You omit the fact that even if Sinn Fein is willing to
>take a moderate route and go into disarmament talks, they *can't do so*
>unless they can pursuade the Provisionals to go along with them, and that
>the Ulster Unionists are in the same bind vis-a-vis the UFF and UVF.
The above is true, but again, irrelevant. My gripe is with the source of all
of this, the republicans. If they vanished, the problem would vanish, it's
as simple as that. And so why are they causing this problem? Because they
want power, that's why - and feel that mob rule in NI and bombing of
innocent men, women and children all over the UK is an honorable method of
achieving this. THIS is the source of British disgust for the IRA - the
tactics. The utter contempt for EVERYONE except the republicans. They are
vile, evil little children. Kicking their feet because they want control no
matter what, and they'll kill anyone to get it. I personally don't give a
flying fuck how hard done by they were 50 years ago, I'd hate the Jews too
if their response to the Hitler thing was random bombing of innocent people
completely irrelevant to their suffering - and nobody sane would ever put
the holocaust in the same league as what historically speaking only amounts
to some internal squabbling in Northern Ireland.
Bombing politicians is one thing - everyone secretly smiles when that
happens, but you bomb innocent people, and expect to be hated too. I don't
see what's so hard to grasp about this.
So look at your statement again:
>"....grossly unfair to the republican movement."
I think not.
Rob.
BTW, have a gander at http://www.nio.gov.uk/dp1972.htm for detailed info on
the NI situation from the horse's mouth.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:57 MDT