LETHAL ALLIES : British Collusion in Ireland

[DownFanatic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Main Street, any suggestion on how I should go about watching it here in the US?

Download Hola Unblocker for Google Chrome and follow the instructions - works for me here

[haveaharp]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465

Odds on a prosecution 500/1

[lawnseed]

All the above is paraphrasing, but is the gist of what was said. As for the book, it is an astonishingly detailed, evidence based account. Evidence stands on it's own merit. And if it was OK for Noel Dorr to slabber about the emotion that "people" felt at hearing Queen Elizabeth speaking Irish ("and in the accent she spoke it in"), then Anne Cadwallader was well within her rights to speak about the emotional anguish of the victims families (whom she had worked with for around twelve years in producing her book) who held a silent and dignified protest on the day and who have a damn good reason to be feeling pain she spoke of. If she stood with them on the anniversary and saw them crying, then she has every right to say so. They might not be IRA victims but media references to their suffering should still be tolerated in the same way at least! If her speaking of this is enough for you to not want to buy a book outlining overwhelming evidence of collusion, then I suspect you likely had no intention of buying it anyway. I'd highly recommend you do though.

Fair enough.

But it isn't ok for this Noel Dorr to speak as you say he did. To dismiss British collusion, claim he knew all about Gárda collusion and then talk about emotion is obviously absurd of him. But it can't be used as an excuse to justify the same treatment to the opposing argument.

It seemed Anne's only reason for bringing up the topic of emotions was as a direct reply to Dorr's comment that the situation in the north was settled. She simply responded by pointing out how absurd a statement that was considering she stood with victims' family members who were literally in tears from pain and anger on Talbott St during the state visit by queen Elizabeth because they continue to be denied closure by a state which had it's Head of State parading around their city on the anniversary of their loved one's deaths. Her arguments overall on the programme, and in her book, were almost exclusively fact/evidence based, rather than emotive.

Personally speaking, the way those families (any anybody who dared voice support for them) were at best ignored that day, and at worst, told to stop living in the past, by an Irish society conditioned to fawn over queen Elizabeth made my skin crawl every bit as much as did the comments of Noel Dorr last night. And for the record, Britain's most recent refusal to hand over the files came the very next day after the "historic" state visit ended. The newfound mutual respect lasted less than 24 hours.

no doubt poetry muppet will mention the files when hes in London next year some chance

Did McGuinness take the Queen to task on them last year?

don't think hes the president.. don't think hes a representative of the 26 government..

What difference does that make?

in the official capacity the queen, peter robbo and martin were guests of the 26 government. martin was there to meet the queen as a representative of the 6 and as a rep of sinn fein a party with the intentions of being in power in the 26 very soon there's a time and place..  that's diplomacy.. I have no doubt that were it martin that were president and he was on his way to London on a return official state visit he would definitely use the opportunity to ask publicly for the files in question.
at best the queen will get a book of poetry and a pint of Guinness.. from our president. 

[deiseach]

in the official capacity the queen, peter robbo and martin were guests of the 26 government. martin was there to meet the queen as a representative of the 6 and as a rep of sinn fein a party with the intentions of being in power in the 26 very soon there's a time and place..  that's diplomacy.. I have no doubt that were it martin that were president and he was on his way to London on a return official state visit he would definitely use the opportunity to ask publicly for the files in question.
at best the queen will get a book of poetry and a pint of Guinness.. from our president.

So let me get this straight. Martin McGuinness doesn't ask the question when he meets the Queen as a private citizen, yet you say he would ask the question if he were President? The President is severely restricted in their function, both by the Constitution and by protocol. It'd be like the government of New Zealand protesting to France over the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by getting Liz, in her role as Head of State of NZ, to doorstep Francois Mitterand during a state visit. Typical Shinner fantasies to explain away their collaboration with the Brits, collaboration that they find so odious when practiced by others.

[Nally Stand]

Wish I had a link to the Vincent Browne show.

As for Lethal Allies, I'd strongly recommend it.  What I liked most about it was its measured and meticulous analysis, a careful join-the-dots that leaves little room for ambiguity and misinterpretation.  In fact, its strongest characteristic is a quality that some might dislike—its deliberate repetitiveness.  But the repetition is essential in reinforcing the carefully woven fabric that is this book.  The author carefully follows the threads of victims, interweaving the victims with their murderers, linking ballistic evidence to killers and then to victims.  I like, too, her flowcharts that join events and people and weapons.

Further, her painstaking connecting of the murder gang to the security forces leaves no doubt about collusion.  All that remains is a question of degree.  Just how systemic was that collusion? It was certainly more than the popular "few bad apples." The authorities' mishandling and loss (read deliberate bungling) of evidence as well as failure to investigate according to rudimentary forensic protocol casts a dark pall over the integrity of those charged with upholding justice.  Not a shocking revelation to those of us who lived through it.

Though Cadwallader veers away from the emotional, at times she sprinkles occasional remarks from the victims' families, and though such interjections do little to bolster her central thesis, they serve to remind us that we readers are dealing not with raw statistics but with real people, people still struggling to cope.

As a post script, a couple of things struck me.  I picked up the book expecting an overt SF blas, which really wouldn't have bothered me, but I was surprised that not only did the book lack a Sinn Fein bias, some of its central characters, apart from the victims and their UVF/UDR killers of course, were SDLP reps and Fathers Murray and Faul.

And on a personal note, I was jolted to discover that one of the victims was almost certainly the father of a girl I dated briefly during the early 70s.

Presumably the SDLP reps were simply popping up to deny collusion? That's what Nally tell us.

Makes it all the more absurd that they same bunch of cretins refused to meet families of collusion victims in stormont on the day they facilitated Jim Allister's anti-agreement SPAD bill, and at an another event in Westminster.

I'm surprised you're so precious about the agreement - SF is more than happy to ignore aspects of it when it suits.

Whataboutery. I think my point was about the stoops ignoring the agreement in this discussion.

This discussion was about collusion - you brought the agreement into it. And maybe my comment is whataboutery. But it's double-standards. Why should one party have to rigidly comply with the agreement when others take an 'a la carte' approach?

Any party could be accused of acting contrary to the agreement at any time. My point about the SDLP, the self-proclaimed creators, defenders and champions of said agreement ("The SDLP is stronger for the Good Friday Agreement. Because we are stronger for each and every one of its key principles....We are also the only party that has defended all of the Agreement") doing so, is in regards their support of Jim Allisters anti-agreement legislation (yes, I know they abstained, but that was all they had to do in order to support it); and in doing so created a hierarchy of innocent victims, where victims of collusion are at the very bottom; victims like those in Anne Cadwallader's book and like those who's families the stoops refused to meet with.

[Rossfan]

in the official capacity the queen, peter robbo and martin were guests of the 26 government. martin was there to meet the queen as a representative of the 6 and as a rep of sinn fein a party with the intentions of being in power in the 26 very soon there's a time and place..  that's diplomacy.. I have no doubt that were it martin that were president and he was on his way to London on a return official state visit he would definitely use the opportunity to ask publicly for the files in question.
at best the queen will get a book of poetry and a pint of Guinness.. from our president.

So let me get this straight. Martin McGuinness doesn't ask the question when he meets the Queen as a private citizen, yet you say he would ask the question if he were President? The President is severely restricted in their function, both by the Constitution and by protocol.
Typical Shinner fantasies to explain away their collaboration with the Brits, collaboration that they find so odious when practiced by others.

Partitionist Hayseed shows his total lack of understanding of Bunreacht na hÉireann and the role of the Uachtarán.

[deiseach]

Partitionist Hayseed shows his total lack of understanding of Bunreacht na hÉireann and the role of the Uachtarán.

It's 'diplomacy', it seems. Can you imagine the stink in Britain if the head of state of any country, let alone an individual who has had such a chequered relationship with Blighty, were to start making demands in public of their supposedly above-that-kind-of-thing Majesty?

[LeoMc]

All the above is paraphrasing, but is the gist of what was said. As for the book, it is an astonishingly detailed, evidence based account. Evidence stands on it's own merit. And if it was OK for Noel Dorr to slabber about the emotion that "people" felt at hearing Queen Elizabeth speaking Irish ("and in the accent she spoke it in"), then Anne Cadwallader was well within her rights to speak about the emotional anguish of the victims families (whom she had worked with for around twelve years in producing her book) who held a silent and dignified protest on the day and who have a damn good reason to be feeling pain she spoke of. If she stood with them on the anniversary and saw them crying, then she has every right to say so. They might not be IRA victims but media references to their suffering should still be tolerated in the same way at least! If her speaking of this is enough for you to not want to buy a book outlining overwhelming evidence of collusion, then I suspect you likely had no intention of buying it anyway. I'd highly recommend you do though.

Fair enough.

But it isn't ok for this Noel Dorr to speak as you say he did. To dismiss British collusion, claim he knew all about Gárda collusion and then talk about emotion is obviously absurd of him. But it can't be used as an excuse to justify the same treatment to the opposing argument.

It seemed Anne's only reason for bringing up the topic of emotions was as a direct reply to Dorr's comment that the situation in the north was settled. She simply responded by pointing out how absurd a statement that was considering she stood with victims' family members who were literally in tears from pain and anger on Talbott St during the state visit by queen Elizabeth because they continue to be denied closure by a state which had it's Head of State parading around their city on the anniversary of their loved one's deaths. Her arguments overall on the programme, and in her book, were almost exclusively fact/evidence based, rather than emotive.

Personally speaking, the way those families (any anybody who dared voice support for them) were at best ignored that day, and at worst, told to stop living in the past, by an Irish society conditioned to fawn over queen Elizabeth made my skin crawl every bit as much as did the comments of Noel Dorr last night. And for the record, Britain's most recent refusal to hand over the files came the very next day after the "historic" state visit ended. The newfound mutual respect lasted less than 24 hours.

no doubt poetry muppet will mention the files when hes in London next year some chance

Did McGuinness take the Queen to task on them last year?

don't think hes the president.. don't think hes a representative of the 26 government..

What difference does that make?

in the official capacity the queen, peter robbo and martin were guests of the 26 government. martin was there to meet the queen as a representative of the 6 and as a rep of sinn fein a party with the intentions of being in power in the 26 very soon there's a time and place..  that's diplomacy.. I have no doubt that were it martin that were president and he was on his way to London on a return official state visit he would definitely use the opportunity to ask publicly for the files in question.
at best the queen will get a book of poetry and a pint of Guinness.. from our president.

But that is not the only time Martin met her. Should he have asked her in the Lyric theatre when he was on home turf?

[Main Street]

What has this got to do with a doddery elderly queen, leave the woman in peace.
Seeing as Martin McGuinness has given his very active response, in the tradition of militant republicanism, to the British military machine and their methods since 1968, I think  his response and message has been loud and clear over the decades and was never silenced.
The problem is what to do from here.
It would appear that the righteous Unionists have a tendency to not bear any responsibility, they tag militant republicans with the blame for all the mayhem and McGuinness has not been shy to reciprocate that he has no issues with an all round inquiry into all the activities of all the protagonists since 1968. That means, open up every can of worms. And what benefit will that have?
It would appear that a South African peace and reconciliation process wont be applicable because the society in South Africa is more conducive to accept the need for forgiveness or some form of acceptance and moving on. In NI those conditions do not exist or are not loud enough.

[HiMucker]

Anyone watching BBC 1 at the min?  Hard to listening to, very one sided British propaganda material.  "We had to take them out, they were terrorists,  they were baby killers" etc etc.  There was a vague introduction about bloody sunday and that the army had to take to the street to curb the IRA violence.  Just the usual wishy washy version of events.  still interesting viewing all the same.

[Wildweasel74]

Forget the Brazil death squads, got nothing on these boys, make the rules up as they went along, broke any law they were supposed to uphold, when they say Northern Ireland was the dirty war, i dont think people knew how dirty it was, some of these guys are pretty much sewer rats

[Arthur_Friend]

Their arrogance is pretty astounding.

[EC Unique]

Nothing new. Nothing surprising. Cnuts.

[qubdub]

Their naivety and ignorance was telling. I wonder what Larkin thought of after his musings the other day. I hope every last one of those c***ts is brought in for questioning. I won't be holding my breath though.