Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[Snapchap]

P.s. I see you are again spouting the notion that there was a peaceful route available to nationalists in the north to achieve what were have today. You keep ignoring the whole Bloody Sunday thing. It's actually kinda relevant in any discussion about how Britain responded to peaceful nationalist protestors in the north of Ireland.

There was

India had Amritsar

South Africa had Sharpeville

The US had Tulsa

And many more

Your lesson from Bloody Sunday was that the slaughter of innocents in Derry therefore justified the slaughter of more innocents

How were Claudy and Bloody Friday the appropriate response to Bloody Sunday?

And your view, from the distance, comfort and safety of the Free State, was for more peaceful protestors in the north to risk getting mown down. I know I've asked you this before and you haven't yet answered (shocking), but you said that change for nationalists was possible form 1972. Oblivious to the fact that that was the very year 14 civil rights protesters were murdered by the British army. So let's (again) break that suggestion down:

After Bloody Sunday, the British were under immense, international pressure, to end their discriminatory regime. They didn't bow under that international pressure. So how, precisely, could peaceful nationalist protesters (who were beaten down after Bloody Sunday) go on to peacefully achieve, by the end of the same year, the conditions we have today, when the pressure of the entire international community wasn't sufficient to achieve this? I'd just love to hear the steps involved.

[sid waddell]

The hypocrisy of people like Sid Waddell is laughable.
Old IRA = Good
New IRA = Bad

This is despite the old IRA killing FOUR times as many policemen and disappearing far more civilians in 3 years than the new IRA did in 30!!!

It just doesn't make sense to laud one as heroes and the other as terrorists. Either they both are or none are.

But I haven't said the old IRA were "good"

I said there were several reasons why their campaign was more morally justifiable than the PIRA's campaign

Your logic literally is: either all wars are justifiable or none are

But that would be to totally demolish any sort of critical thinking

[sid waddell]

P.s. I see you are again spouting the notion that there was a peaceful route available to nationalists in the north to achieve what were have today. You keep ignoring the whole Bloody Sunday thing. It's actually kinda relevant in any discussion about how Britain responded to peaceful nationalist protestors in the north of Ireland.

There was

India had Amritsar

South Africa had Sharpeville

The US had Tulsa

And many more

Your lesson from Bloody Sunday was that the slaughter of innocents in Derry therefore justified the slaughter of more innocents

How were Claudy and Bloody Friday the appropriate response to Bloody Sunday?

And your view, from the distance, comfort and safety of the Free State, was for more peaceful protestors in the north to risk getting mown down. I know I've asked you this before and you haven't yet answered (shocking), but you said that change for nationalists was possible form 1972. Oblivious to the fact that that was the very year 14 civil rights protesters were murdered by the British army. So let's (again) break that suggestion down:

After Bloody Sunday, the British were under immense, international pressure, to end their discriminatory regime. They didn't bow under that international pressure. So how, precisely, could peaceful nationalist protesters (who were beaten down after Bloody Sunday) go on to peacefully achieve, by the end of the same year, the conditions we have today, when the pressure of the entire international community wasn't sufficient to achieve this? I'd just love to hear the steps involved.

But you haven't dealt with the examples I gave nor have you answered the questions I put

The only real long term strategy available to Northern Catholics was peaceful mobilisation

The problem with your ideas is that you believe there was a click your fingers quick fix magic bullet available

There wasn't

Peaceful struggle involves long years of mobilisation, struggle and endurance

Ironically endurance was the strategy of the IRA - they believed they could out endure the Brits - but they were totally wrong, with disastrous consequences

I asked you why Claudy and Bloody Friday were an appropriate response to Bloody Sunday, ie. why more dead civilians on the streets of rural Derry and Belfast was the answer to dead civilians on the streets of Derry City

You haven't answered that

[Angelo]

Sid continues to be the only poster on here justifying the murder of civilians.

He's been given countless opportunities to address this but hasn't (as he is a hypocrite).

[sid waddell]

In terms of continued peaceful mobilisation, one of the key advantages would be that it would likely have largely won over mainstream British public opinion, which would have forced the UK Govermment's hand as regards equality in NI

But mainstream British public opinion was never going to be won over by bombing and maiming, was it?

Unsurprisingly the British public treated the PIRA as the enemy because they were bombing British cities and killing British soldiers and killing prominent MPs and members of the Royal Family

That's not a good way to win over people to your cause

[Angelo]

P.s. I see you are again spouting the notion that there was a peaceful route available to nationalists in the north to achieve what were have today. You keep ignoring the whole Bloody Sunday thing. It's actually kinda relevant in any discussion about how Britain responded to peaceful nationalist protestors in the north of Ireland.

There was

India had Amritsar

South Africa had Sharpeville

The US had Tulsa

And many more

Your lesson from Bloody Sunday was that the slaughter of innocents in Derry therefore justified the slaughter of more innocents

How were Claudy and Bloody Friday the appropriate response to Bloody Sunday?

And your view, from the distance, comfort and safety of the Free State, was for more peaceful protestors in the north to risk getting mown down. I know I've asked you this before and you haven't yet answered (shocking), but you said that change for nationalists was possible form 1972. Oblivious to the fact that that was the very year 14 civil rights protesters were murdered by the British army. So let's (again) break that suggestion down:

After Bloody Sunday, the British were under immense, international pressure, to end their discriminatory regime. They didn't bow under that international pressure. So how, precisely, could peaceful nationalist protesters (who were beaten down after Bloody Sunday) go on to peacefully achieve, by the end of the same year, the conditions we have today, when the pressure of the entire international community wasn't sufficient to achieve this? I'd just love to hear the steps involved.

But you haven't dealt with the examples I gave nor have you answered the questions I put

The only real long term strategy available to Northern Catholics was peaceful mobilisation

The problem with your ideas is that you believe there was a click your fingers quick fix magic bullet available

There wasn't

Peaceful struggle involves long years of mobilisation, struggle and endurance

Ironically endurance was the strategy of the IRA - they believed they could out endure the Brits - but they were totally wrong, with disastrous consequences

I asked you why Claudy and Bloody Friday were an appropriate response to Bloody Sunday, ie. why more dead civilians on the streets of rural Derry and Belfast was the answer to dead civilians on the streets of Derry City

You haven't answered that

Yet the Old IRA had no problem killing civilians in reprisals yet you justify that. Hyp-o-crite.

[sid waddell]

Keep shouting at your own reflection, Angelo 

[sid waddell]

Sid appears to have a very narrow view, and his lack of understanding/ antagonism directed at northern nationalists, isn't rational no matter how articulate he is. That said there are several differences between the old IRA and PIRA. It's interesting to see how we are still failing to support our victims in the North. Despite old wounds in the South people got on with it, had to accept their differences as they concentrated on putting food on the table. Perhaps the fact it was a shorter war , most people were United rather than divided by religion, and there wasn't excessive culture of commemoration, but erstwhile enemies moved on whilst respecting those before them . In the North it has proved harder to move on. Polarisation, commemoration culture, longer drawn out war, and relatively less poverty than ROI post 1921, could all be factors. One of the biggest issues for me is that northern "nationalists" remain marginalised and would gain most from a United ireland but we remain divided ourselves and we are not doing enough to envisage a New ireland never mind promoting it.

I actually agree with most of your post there but you lose credibility with the personal attack on me and mischaracterisation of my opinions at the start of it

[Angelo]

Keep shouting at your own reflection, Angelo 

I'll keep the spotlight on how you haven't a shred of credibility, every post you make is a contradiction of an earlier one you made. Your faux outrage and faux morals are there for all to see.

[Snapchap]

But you haven't dealt with the examples I gave nor have you answered the questions I put

The only real long term strategy available to Northern Catholics was peaceful mobilisation

The problem with your ideas is that you believe there was a click your fingers quick fix magic bullet available

There wasn't

Mobalisation? The biggest mobalisation strategy of Catholics in 1972 was to flee across the border for safety and a roof over their heads. In 1972 - the year you have ludicrously claimed Catholics could have turned things around by (and you accuse me of believing there was a quick fix solution available!) - there were 10,000 refugees living in refugee camps across the border. Maybe it hasn't dawned on you that staying at home to protest wasn't an option for thousands upon thousands of nationalists when they often didn't have a home to remain in. Of course, the actual reality of life for the nationalist people on the ground in the north is of no concern what-so-ever to you - hence your proposition that they continue to live under the boot and meekly protest about it. Your only concern is to take a sanctimonious, hypocritical, judgmental 'not-in-my-name' attitude to a conflict that you've been spoon-fed a Section 31 diet of lies about throughout the duration of, presumably because it helps you deal with the inner guilt you feel for your own slice of free state freedom being won for you by another armed campaign (that included acts of savage brutality and war crimes) which you feel you cannot condemn.

Peaceful struggle involves long years of mobilisation, struggle and endurance

Well sure why didn't the people of Ireland just engage in moral, peaceful protest in 1916 or 1918?

I asked you why Claudy and Bloody Friday were an appropriate response to Bloody Sunday,

I've stated umpteen times that the targeting of civilians in a conflict, no matter how justifiable the conflict, is utterly reprehensible. That's the difference in us. You can't seem to make that distinction. You believe that if someone believes the PIRA campaign was justifiable, that every action they carried out in it was justifiable. By that logic, anyone who believes the allies were justified in taking part in WW2 must then believe the carpet bombing Dresden was acceptable. Or that anyone who believes that the Old IRA campaign was justifiable must therefor regard their disappearing 100-200 mostly innocent civilians was acceptable, especially, according to you, if they do so with great efficiency.

[Rossfan]

98 years ago today the last British soldiers went home from the new Irish Free State.

[Angelo]

I've stated umpteen times that the targeting of civilians in a conflict, no matter how justifiable the conflict, is utterly reprehensible. That's the difference in us. You can't seem to make that distinction. You believe that if someone believes the PIRA campaign was justifiable, that every action they carried out in it was justifiable. By that logic, anyone who believes the allies were justified in taking part in WW2 must then believe the carpet bombing Dresden was acceptable. Or that anyone who believes that the Old IRA campaign was justifiable must therefor approve of their disappearing 100-200 mostly innocent civilians was acceptable, especially, according to you, if they do so with great efficiency.

+1

Sid continues to be the only poster here who tries to justify the murder of civilians.

[sid waddell]

But you haven't dealt with the examples I gave nor have you answered the questions I put

The only real long term strategy available to Northern Catholics was peaceful mobilisation

The problem with your ideas is that you believe there was a click your fingers quick fix magic bullet available

There wasn't

Mobalisation? The biggest mobalisation strategy of Catholics in 1972 was to flee across the border for safety and a roof over their heads. In 1972 - the year you have ludicrously claimed Catholics could have turned things around by (and you accuse me of believing there was a quick fix solution available!) - there were 10,000 refugees living in refugee camps across the border. Maybe it hasn't dawned on you that staying at home to protest wasn't an option for thousands upon thousands of nationalists when they often didn't have a home to remain in. Of course, the actual reality of life for the nationalist people on the ground in the north is of no concern what-so-ever to you - hence your proposition that they continue to live under the boot and meekly protest about it. Your only concern is to take a sanctimonious, hypocritical, judgmental 'not-in-my-name' attitude to a conflict that you've been spoon-fed a Section 31 diet of lies about throughout the duration of, presumably because it helps you deal with the inner guilt you feel for your own slice of free state freedom being won for you by another armed campaign (that included acts of savage brutality and war crimes) which you feel you cannot condemn.

Peaceful struggle involves long years of mobilisation, struggle and endurance

Well sure why didn't the people of Ireland just engage in moral, peaceful protest in 1916 or 1918?

I asked you why Claudy and Bloody Friday were an appropriate response to Bloody Sunday,

I've stated umpteen times that the targeting of civilians in a conflict, no matter how justifiable the conflict, is utterly reprehensible. That's the difference in us. You can't seem to make that distinction. You believe that if someone believes the PIRA campaign was justifiable, that every action they carried out in it was justifiable. By that logic, anyone who believes the allies were justified in taking part in WW2 must then believe the carpet bombing Dresden was acceptable. Or that anyone who believes that the Old IRA campaign was justifiable must therefor approve of their disappearing 100-200 mostly innocent civilians was acceptable, especially, according to you, if they do so with great efficiency.

Sorry but this whole argument started because people like yourself objected to the notion that there was a different way for Northern Catholics/Nationalists to advance their cause other than a 28 year campaign of violence of which sectarian slaughter was an integral part

But there was, it would not have been instant, it would not have been easy, but had peace been the modus operandi, they would have achieved everything that's there now, and likely a lot quicker

They had essential righteousness and justice on their side - but that went out the window when the PIRA started bombing and shooting

Claudy and Bloody Friday were exactly the wrong responses to Bloody Sunday

Funny you mention the refugees because I bet anything you saw that the other day on the "censored" RTE website (RTE is the virus, remember) - reporting by Kevin Myers, incidentally

Again you're on with your reductio ad absurdum ideas about war in general

[Franko]

Your Germany/Iraq analogy is nonsensical. 

But how?

Your logic is: some really terrible stuff went on during the War Of Independence, therefore there can be no difference at all between the War of Independence and the 28 year PIRA campaign

Some really terrible stuff went on during World War II on the Allied side, therefore there can be no difference at all between World War II and the war in Iraq - or Vietnam, Afghanistan etc.

It's literally the exact same logic

It's a total destruction of critical thinking

And it's also a carte blanche for dissos right now

It's really not.

I notice you failed to quote or respond to the rest of my post.

[Franko]

"But in the Dail, only Sinn Fein are still glorifying a campaign of which sectarian murder was an integral part

Nobody else is

Therefore it's totally legitimate to call Sinn Fein glorifiers of sectarian murder, especially after comments like that of Stanley and David Cullinane"

This is a direct quote from you a couple of days back.

Can you please use your powers of critical thinking to show me how this does not apply to FG, given the recent glorification of Richard Mulcahy on their official twitter account?