Shoot to Kill 1982

[Fiodoir Ard Mhacha]

I don't speak for the Provos, as you call them, or indeed any political party or grouping either.

The Troubles happened - they should never have been allowed to happen - but thanks to the lack of intervention by an isolationist Westminster government, the political vacuum existed - the discrimination continued - and the circumstances developed which led to the tragic loss of life - on all sides.

I'm not discriminatory in expressing sympathy for anyone who has lost their lives for no reason.

Btw, I heard a woman in her 50s from Derry being interviewed yesterday about the end of Operation Banner. She turned and asked the reporter what has been achieved? The British troops are all but gone, the Paisleyites are in charge and we're nowhere nearer a united Ireland than 1967.

[Oraisteach]

So, Jim, let's say in the Seamus Grew case, are you saying that on the one hand it was wrong for the RUC to execute Grew, but on the other that you're not at all unhappy with the outcome of that execution?

[Rossfan]

II heard a woman in her 50s from Derry being interviewed yesterday about the end of Operation Banner. She turned and asked the reporter what has been achieved? The British troops are all but gone, the Paisleyites are in charge and we're nowhere nearer a united Ireland than 1967.

Sounds like a doctrinaire dissident republican to me

[Fiodoir Ard Mhacha]

.........and she was broadcast on the BBC.

Mind, the Beeb have now been criticised for yesterday playing "Go home British soldiers" by The Wolfe Tones, before returning to a live interview with an ex-British army officer (from Scotland) who had 'served' in the north.

[Jim_Murphy_74]

So, Jim, let's say in the Seamus Grew case, are you saying that on the one hand it was wrong for the RUC to execute Grew, but on the other that you're not at all unhappy with the outcome of that execution?

Oraisteach,

I wouldn't be happy or unhappy.  I wouldn't have that much sympathy for him.  I would believe that world would be a better place without any INLA members.    

That doesn't make it right for the RUC to have acted the way they did.  

As I said, two separate issues.

/Jim.

[lynchbhoy]

ruc in large parts being as 'paramilitary ' as the republicans they were killing imo

[Jim_Murphy_74]

ruc in large parts being as 'paramilitary ' as the republicans they were killing imo

Indeed and there are many of the security forces that I would have little sympathy for too.

/Jim.

[MW]

MW, I still can't fully grasp your position.  I'm gratified when you write, "I don't think the police should take the law into their own hands and don't want a society where the police are tasked with 'taking out' terrorists. More should be expected of them," but then you say, "I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for terrorists who ended up getting the treatment they had advocated and carried out."

There is nothing equivocal or contradictory with those statement.  Personally I would agree with both.  Higher standards should be expected of the security forces.  However that doesn't mean you have to feel sorry for those who got the treatment.

Perfectly rational reasoning from MW.

/Jim.

Thanks Jim - yes that accurately sums up my feelings on this issue.

Put it this way - those mentioned on that site were IRA and INLA terrorists. They claimed they had the right to kill police officers, soliders, and various others in cold blood. In their homes, their workplaces, while socialising. Edgar Graham for example was murdered by the IRA around this time for the crime of being a unionist elected representative. The INLA bombed the Droppin' Well pub in Ballykelly to kill 11 soldiers, as well as plenty of civilians including three 17 year old girls and a 25 year old woman (all Prods, so expendable, obviously). The IRA had been murdering businessmen for 'helping the British economy'. These terrorists advocated, and carried out, killings of people - anyone they deemed to be an 'enemy of Ireland'. So for them to meet their end at the barrel of a gun strikes me as not an occasion for my sympathy. The same goes for the death of, for example the UVF terrorist Brian Robinson shot dead by undercover soldiers in the early 1990s.

[MW]

. Equally I have every sympathy with innocents like John Gallagher and deeply wish that horrific events like that had never taken place.

I can't help noticing - no condemnation of the B Specials by MW  just regret about "events like that"
TUT TUT

Obviously I condemn those responsible for the death described.

[MW]

Well, we haven't long to wait now for the report from Saville. I was sure, however, that Bloody Sunday was a civil rights march, not a rent-a-mob excuse for another 'Londonderry' (sic) riot. But, like I said, the report should be hitting the shelves in the next six or seven months.

Without pre-empting the contents of the Saville report too much, I would be sure that it will recognise a riot took place after the anti-internment march - I thought that was a matter of historical record? That's not to say that 13 of the dead weren't innocent civilians, or that at least some of the deaths wouldn't be open to being classed as murder.

PS The 1970s must have been really rough times. But then it all stopped and the security forces must have just started shooting unarmed suspects as opposed to unarmed civilians. 

Army tactics in the early 1970s were often unsuitable, unsophisticated and at times brutally counter-productive. Unacceptable force including lethal force was used on various occasions. This changed after that time - looked at the massive drop in the number of deaths caused by the security forces, and their small number when compared with those caused by the paramilitaries. This was partly becuase of refined tactics and learning on the part of the Army. It was also due to a falling off in the type of mass riots that took place in the early 1970s, and more disciplined handling of rioting. There was also a change in the nature of the PIRA campaign of violence, which became more classically terrorist where previously it has mixed classical terrorism with 'insurgency'-type situations (gun-battles, no-go areas, etc) - cutting off this avenue of PIRA violenct tactics seems to have made it less likely civilians would end up as casualties of the army.

To say "the security forces must have just started shooting unarmed suspects" is twisting what I have said almost 180 degrees. I pointed out that actions to 'take out' terrorists were very rare - the 1982 events being exceptional. After that it generally only happened if the SAS (or 14 Intelligence Company etc) were able to arrange to catch terrorists "on active service".

[Donagh]

From: www.shoottokill25.org

"On 12 December 1982 two unarmed INLA members Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll were shot dead in Mullacreevie Park in Armagh city. Both men were unarmed with Roddy Carroll being shot from a distance of six feet. Seamus Grew was shot from a distance of two feet by the same RUC officer."

[Fiodoir Ard Mhacha]

Without pre-empting the contents of the Saville report too much, I would be sure that it will recognise a riot took place after the anti-internment march - I thought that was a matter of historical record? That's not to say that 13 of the dead weren't innocent civilians, or that at least some of the deaths wouldn't be open to being classed as murder.

Army tactics in the early 1970s were often unsuitable, unsophisticated and at times brutally counter-productive. Unacceptable force including lethal force was used on various occasions. This changed after that time - looked at the massive drop in the number of deaths caused by the security forces, and their small number when compared with those caused by the paramilitaries. This was partly becuase of refined tactics and learning on the part of the Army. It was also due to a falling off in the type of mass riots that took place in the early 1970s, and more disciplined handling of rioting. There was also a change in the nature of the PIRA campaign of violence, which became more classically terrorist where previously it has mixed classical terrorism with 'insurgency'-type situations (gun-battles, no-go areas, etc) - cutting off this avenue of PIRA violenct tactics seems to have made it less likely civilians would end up as casualties of the army.

To say "the security forces must have just started shooting unarmed suspects" is twisting what I have said almost 180 degrees. I pointed out that actions to 'take out' terrorists were very rare - the 1982 events being exceptional. After that it generally only happened if the SAS (or 14 Intelligence Company etc) were able to arrange to catch terrorists "on active service".

1. I guess you're inferring that the 14th to die (presumably Gerald Donaghy) was a terrorist as he was 'found' with nail bombs in his pockets, was a member of Fianna Éireann at the time, and therefore deserved to be executed.

2. The British Army so unsophisticated, unprepared, practically amateurish! In the 1970s? I personally think Bloody Sunday was an out and out revenge attack on the general public in Derry for previous events - unfortunately, the Saville enquiry will never be able to confirm that.

3. Re. Shoot to kill - again, let's see the Stalker report, for starters.

The north - if not, indeed, the island of Ireland - needs some form of truth and reconciliation programme which will re-examine the atrocities of the Troubles - on both sides.  If £2,000 a second can be spent by the British government on their illegal war in Iraq, then this would be a drop in Gordon's ocean.

[MW]

From: www.shoottokill25.org

"On 12 December 1982 two unarmed INLA members Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll were shot dead in Mullacreevie Park in Armagh city. Both men were unarmed with Roddy Carroll being shot from a distance of six feet. Seamus Grew was shot from a distance of two feet by the same RUC officer."

Do you have a problem with the shooting dead of people from two feet then Donagh?

And do you think those behind that wesbite do? (They're awfully coy about the 'careers' of the 'Volunteers' ...)

[Donagh]

From: www.shoottokill25.org

"On 12 December 1982 two unarmed INLA members Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll were shot dead in Mullacreevie Park in Armagh city. Both men were unarmed with Roddy Carroll being shot from a distance of six feet. Seamus Grew was shot from a distance of two feet by the same RUC officer."

Do you have a problem with the shooting dead of people from two feet then Donagh?

And do you think those behind that wesbite do? (They're awfully coy about the 'careers' of the 'Volunteers' ...)

Do you have a problem with your paramilitary scum being shown up for being the murdering low lives the rest of us know they were?

[MW]

From: www.shoottokill25.org

"On 12 December 1982 two unarmed INLA members Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll were shot dead in Mullacreevie Park in Armagh city. Both men were unarmed with Roddy Carroll being shot from a distance of six feet. Seamus Grew was shot from a distance of two feet by the same RUC officer."

Do you have a problem with the shooting dead of people from two feet then Donagh?

And do you think those behind that wesbite do? (They're awfully coy about the 'careers' of the 'Volunteers' ...)

Do you have a problem with your paramilitary scum being shown up for being the murdering low lives the rest of us know they were?

You could at least attempt to answer my questions, instead of just repsonding with a question Very poor.