Shoot to Kill 1982

[Donagh]

Really? Have you been honing those mind reading skills of yours again? Why don't you start another thread on the calls for enquiries for the victims of these six men to test me first without running down that dead end like MW with fingers in ears and eyes firmly shut?

I have stated my agenda in relation to this site and this thread. A narrow agenda it may be but I make no apologies for fighting that corner.

[SammyG]

Really? Have you been honing those mind reading skills of yours again? Why don't you start another thread on the calls for enquiries for the victims of these six men to test me first without running down that dead end like MW with fingers in ears and eyes firmly shut?

You have said many, many times that Republicans never murdered anybody and where soldiers in a war, so I'm hardly having to do any major mind-reading.

[Donagh]

Well if I've said that so many times it shouldn't be hard for you to dig up the quotes, or is this to be like those other times were the literal meaning of what is typed magically conveys an alternative semantic meaning that can only be translated by SammyG? You know all like all those times I referred to the bad Prods and the GAA insiders (or was it outsider?).

[MW]

Oh my good God. I really can't believe you have the bare faced cheek to start the post with a reference to hypocrisy and then continue with the rest of that bile. Six men are murdered in cold blood in the most extremely callous way and all you can do is apportion blame on the murdered as opposed to the murderers and those that gave them instructions. I don't know why I'm surprised when we've all experienced the 'that Fenian must have done something to deserve it' attitude emanating from the unionist community.

Nice try - trot out the old provo smear - I must think they deserved it because they were Catholic. Not because they were in the IRA and the INLA, and carried out cold-blooded killings. (FFS the clue was in the fact that I referred to 5 people - the 6th was a Catholic too, wasn't he?)

(By the way I named others to illustrate my attitude - Robinson, Bingham and Bratty. Don't think they would be Catholic, do you?)

Guilty until proven absolutely and unequivocally innocent eh? That such Neanderthal attitudes still exist and indeed are nurtured in our society today really does sicken.

Wise up, settle down and try to think for two seconds. Everyone, the families and the terrorist groups themselves, acknowledge openly that the five I'm referring to were members of the IRA and INLA. FFS the webiste even has profiles of "Óglach Eugene Toman" ("...he volunteered to join the ranks of Óglaigh na hÉireann.An extremely active Volunteer..."), "Óglach Gervase McKerr", "Óglach Sean Burns" ("...conscious decision to join the ranks of Óglaigh na hÉireann...A dedicated Volunteer who was always on the lookout for operations...He immediately returned to active service."), "Vol Seamus Grew" ("...crossed the border from an INLA meeting...") and "Vol Roddy Carroll". (Oddly, no biographical note is supplied for the 6th, innocent, man...).

If you want to dispute that these men were 'active' members of the IRA and INLA, take it up with those behind the webite, or the IRA & INLA, or the families. Not me. If you want to dispute that the IRA and INLA were going round carrying out cold-blooded killings on a regular basis, then God help you since you're obviously suffering from some sort of mental blackout.

[MW]

Jez Sammy I'd have thought that even someone like yourself, so good at reading things in posts that don't exist would even have picked up on the line which clearly endorses murder. Let me do you the courtesy you find so difficult to afford others and reprint it for you:

"I'm quite clear on 5 of them - they did deserve it."

There is no doubt that these men were callously murdered and even twenty five years later that fella can't even bring himself to the offer the families of the murdered the same basic rights he would demand for himself and the good old paramilitary killers of the RUC.

Rubbish. Actually I think the families of the dead have the same right to find out the truth as anyone else in our society.

[MW]

I read the post. Interesting that you choose to pull out one line that suits your very narrow agenda but miss the following "(By the way this sin't to say I think it should have happened - I think for example that child rapist/killers deserve a slow painful death but I don't think this should be carried out)" which qualifies the previous comment.

I think most normal people would agree that they wouldn't shed to many tears for a sectarian murderer who got what he dealt, but that's totally different from wanting it to happen or thinking that the security forces should have carte blanche, which they clearly didn't.

Spot on, Sammy. That's exactly what I'm saying.

[Donagh]

No one has denied they were members of the IRA or INLA. As far as I'm aware, even if one were 'convicted' of membership of those organisations the death penalty wouldn't have been imposed, but maybe a sentence of between 2 and 5 years with 50% remission.

Why are you bringing religion into the discussion?

[MW]

No one has denied they were members of the IRA or INLA. As far as I'm aware, even if one were 'convicted' of membership of those organisations the death penalty wouldn't have been imposed, but maybe a sentence of between 2 and 5 years with 50% remission.

And the crimes they carried out during their 'careers' in the IRA and INLA? Membership of an illegal organisation wasn't the only offence they committed during that time - the profiles are clear about their 'active' status. Murder featured very strongly among the offences the IRA and INLA were carrying out, as I'm sure are aware.

And I haven't said that deat is an appropriate sentence for any of their activities, whether it be membership of an illegal organisation or murder. I don't advocate that. I've been clear I don't advoate their fate.

But given that the five men I'm referring to were active terrorists in murder gangs which advocated killing in cold blood police officers, solders, and various categories of civilians, and carried out exactly such killings on a regular basis, I think they deserved the death they got at the point of a gun. As Brian Robinson did. As Billy Wright did.

To use a historical example, I think Mussolini richly deserved his summary execution (and public degredation) at the hands of the partisans. But I don't advoate it - once captured he should have faced a proper war crimes tribunal. (And I don't think his mistress deserved the fate she met by any means)

Why are you bringing religion into the discussion?

I'm not. I'm replying to what you said:

I don't know why I'm surprised when we've all experienced the 'that Fenian must have done something to deserve it' attitude emanating from the unionist community.

This was bringing religion into the discussion, was it not? (and an incredibly low blow in my book)

[Oraisteach]

MW, despite your eloquent protestations to the contrary and your support by Sammy, I am still bothered by your position, which is still in essence doublethink.

Even though you state that you oppose the Shoot-to-Kill actions of the RUC, you applaud the outcome of their actions, which in effect is to support those very actions.  In the Mussolini example, you say that he "richly deserved" his treatment by the partisans, but there is a fundamental difference between the doings of inflamed anti-Fascist partisans and the actions of those charged with upholding justice.  The RUC ought not to be acting like a mob.  Whatever the guilt of Grew, Carroll, Toman, etc., it ought to be determined in a court and not on the street, and whatever your loathing of those three, you ought simply to be castigating the real outlaws in this scenario, the RUC vigilantes. Your criticism of Grew, Carroll and Toman should come after a TRIAL (presupposing it is a fair one and they are found guilty).

In short, I suppose what troubles me most about your stance is that I do not hear an unequivocal out-and-out denunciation of the RUC's conduct, full stop.  All criticism is tempered with an ex post facto justification, a Machiavellian ends justifying the means stance.  No doubt you will fire back that your two positions are mutually exclusive, which I don't think they are.  You can't simply criticize and celebrate at the same time.

The bottom line is, no one deserves summary execution, especially when they can be arrested and tried, particularly in a society which purports to uphold the law—not Seamus Grew, not Saddam Hussein, not even Osama bin Laden, if he can be apprehended and put on trial.

I don't hear you adequately condemning the real wrongdoers in this case.

[Main Street]

Next we will be hearing that General Tom Barry carried out a determined campaign to murder every prod in West Cork.

Shoot to kill means war is declared. AFAIK war was never declared. When STK is used as a tactic by security forces in the absence of such a declaration then it is murder. It is sanctioned murder by the State.
"Mr Ed Moloney in an article in the Sunday Tribune, 9 June 1991, stated that since the 1982 killings investigated by John Stalker 67 civilians and paramilitaries had been shot dead in 'Shoot-to-kill' operations. Twenty of these were civilians and 47  paramilitaries, of whom only two were loyalists."
(I wonder wtf was the problem with STK against loyalists)
I have no problem with this STK website that Donagh is connected to. State terrorism should be documented.
But also it is my opinion that any Irish Republican who was prepared to kill unarmed UDR scum should also be prepared to be shot anytime anyplace. That is the fate of a soldier.
STK as a tactic and the cover up rebounded with full force against the British Government.
Previously internment did not work, likewise shooting marchers, supergrass trials, the battle against the prisoners.
A mickey mouse group of republicans that existed in 1969 have now got to the stage where they are now sharing power in NI.

As the Britsh army operation review said, wouldn't it all have been better to bulldoze the Divis and rehouse the people instead of deploying regiments to keep the peasants in line.

[Donagh]

MW let me get this straight. You are claiming that these men deserved to be murdered because the organisation to which they belonged also murdered people. Does this view extend to the deaths of RUC personnel i.e. I take it you also believe that they got what they deserved as the organisation to which they belonged also murdered people, as they did in this case? It's estimated that over 50k people served as members of the IRA over 30 years – do they all deserve to be murdered also?

[Donagh]

50,000 ? Seems a bit high Donagh. Thats almost 10% of the Nationalist population. I know nowadays every bar stool republican claims to have been in the IRA but 50,000 seems way way too high.

You're the last person I'd have thought to come out with that kind of partitionist thinking 5Times 

[GweylTah]

50,000 ? Seems a bit high Donagh. Thats almost 10% of the Nationalist population. I know nowadays every bar stool republican claims to have been in the IRA but 50,000 seems way way too high.

Donagh is prone to a bit of exaggeration - sure he thinks a North-South Fisheries Commission is an embryonic united Ireland

[stew]

50,000 ? Seems a bit high Donagh. Thats almost 10% of the Nationalist population. I know nowadays every bar stool republican claims to have been in the IRA but 50,000 seems way way too high.

Donagh is prone to a bit of exaggeration - sure he thinks a North-South Fisheries Commission is an embryonic united Ireland

And shure dont you think this mythical land called northern ireland is a country!

[GweylTah]

50,000 ? Seems a bit high Donagh. Thats almost 10% of the Nationalist population. I know nowadays every bar stool republican claims to have been in the IRA but 50,000 seems way way too high.

Donagh is prone to a bit of exaggeration - sure he thinks a North-South Fisheries Commission is an embryonic united Ireland

And shure dont you think this mythical land called northern ireland is a country!

Whatever it is, it's hardly mythical - it is an internationally recognised region of the UK. Country, region, state, statelet, province, call it whatever you like - it exists and, in some shape or form, always will, I daresay it will outlive all of us and whatever becomes of it, none of us will take it with us.

See, I might talk shite a lot of the time, but I can be profound to at certain phases of the moon.