When Is A Terrorist Not A Terrorist?

Outraged Omagh bomb victims have hit out at a judge's ruling that the terror group behind the atrocity was not an illegal organisation. The British Government immediately pledged to challenge the landmark assessment of the Real IRA. Mr Justice Girvan delivered his verdict at Belfast Crown Court as he cleared four men of membership of the dissident republican faction. Even though the authorities in the Irish Republic and the United States have come down hard on it, the judge insisted the organisation was not included on a proscribed list. His ruling stunned Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among 29 people murdered by the August 1998 Real IRA attack on Omagh - the worst single outrage in Northern Ireland's troubles.

Mr Gallagher said: "This is an organisation that's hell-bent on creating death and devastation. "It just leaves you without words that something like this can happen." Although the IRA is contained on a list of outlawed groups, Mr Justice Girvan stressed that the relevant legislation does not include any organisation called or known as the Real Irish Republican Army.

His decision means anyone attached to the dissident group cannot be convicted of Real IRA membership alone. Anxious Government officials are beginning moves to contest the development. A Northern Ireland Office spokesman confirmed: "The Government is very concerned at this ruling and the Director of Public Prosecutions is forwarding a report to the Attorney General with a view to an appeal. The Government is clear that RIRA should be a proscribed organisation."


Speechless - comes to mind!!!

 

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Barely relevant: I happened to be taking part in impact reduction in a family crisis at the time--for once not originating with me--but as I drove down to Oregon, I tuned into ... the independent station whose call I can never remember. At any rate, an Irish woman was playing Irish tunes, and, in the wake of the Omagh bombing, I'm quite sure after listening to that broadcast that she was drinking herself into a stupor on the air. Something about the Omagh bombing seems to transcend the typical level of atrocity amid the Troubles. It was, for one who bears no Irish blood, a moving moment. My symapthies to the occupied counties; as an American I understand the need to expel the British. But times changed, and much seemed to hinge on Omagh. That the extent of the tragedy was a sad blunder of amateurism is irrelevant.

Mr. Gallagher seems to be playing a very technical card, although--and again, as an American, but this in the age of the American holy War on Terror--I can see the actual necessity of someone playing that card somewhere in the world.

It's not just a matter of getting what you want, but doing so legitimately. The rest is a constitutional or similar issue of which my knowledge is insufficient. But it does seem that this question would not arise did not the prevailing law allow it.

 

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Are you for real!!!

"the occupied counties; as an American I understand the need to expel the British" -

its people like you who are driving history back not forward!!! We are there because it is ours! The people want it that way - not the bloody governments in London or Dublin!

Get your occupying forces out of Germany, The United Kingdom, Iraq, Diego Garcia, Cuba, etc etc etc Go back to your isolationist self pity!

You sanctimonious americans make me puke! I really should not have posted a domestic United Kingdom problem on a site much frequented by people who have supported and paid for many many innocent deaths in Ulster by contributing freely to the "cause". Pathetic sanctimonious idiots.

 

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Its another typical legal mess up. they forgot to put it on a list of groups that are actually illegal, therefore, members cant actually be done for being members of an illegal group. It should be fixed as soon as possible.

(and the answer is "when they're a freedom fighter.")

 

When Is A Terrorist Not A Terrorist?

Err when he's an American?
Dee Cee

 

Self-righteous twats from the UK should not post on a board what they don't want to read opinions about. The simple fact is that the UK is a poor colonial administrator, the problems of the US notwithstanding.

Look at how you start your response, by ripping at Americans. What, are you completely unable to stand on your own merit in this?

Go back to the pub if you only want to hear the George and Dragon.

 

If the acquitted men were found really guilty of omagh bombing (i) they are to be punished for homicide irrespective of their grouping and (ii) the judiciary should demand the government to include RIRA in the proscribed list.

Judiciary also has the responsibilty to advice / demand the removal of the legal loopholes arising out of laxity of govt, in this case. Instead of delivering proactive justice the judge seems to be resorting to exposing-by-exploiting-the-loophole judgement. The tragedy is too big for such blame games.

 

Opinions. Exactly. Us 'self righteous twats' from the UK prefer to discuss the FACTS of the case, especially when it come to terrorism and the Irish problem.

See, there are two major factions in the problem. The protestants, who are Irishmen living in Northern Ireland loyal to the crown, and the IRA, supposedly Catholic, who want to kick the English (and the pro English Irish inhabitants) out of Northern Ireland, and stitch it together with the rest of Ireland.

Now, here's another fact. Northern Ireland has democracy, as does Southern Ireland. Sinn Fein are the political wing of the IRA, and despite all the long years of the troubles, bombings and general terror, have never been supported enough to gain power, and make separation from the UK a valid political act. So they keep killing people instead. The Loyalists (protestants)then go kill people in reprisal attacks.

Of course, assholes in the United States kept giving NORAID money to continue the bloodshed, without having a clue what it's all about, displaying a complete ignorance and contempt of the complexities of the situation, and thinking that killing more people (through funding) would lead to a solution.

I've been evacuated from railways stations, and had a bomb go off outside a friends flat while I was there.

It was indiscriminate terror, and civilians were often the targets. About 3000 people have died thanks to Irish terrorism.

 

Not very often that i disagree with tiassa however i do feel obliged to point out the hypocrisy of the American attitude towards the IRA and their affiliate groups.

You found out the reality on 9/11/01 what being attacked by terrorists feels like and id hope it changed a lot of opinion across the pond towards the IRA who have detonated several large bombs in English city's over the past 30 years.

Not that we do occupy NI but even if you are of the opinion we did, does occupation validate terrorism?

We don't occupy Northern Ireland, unless of course, you consider having military bases in a country as an occupation, in that case do i have the right to slaughter American's on the justification that you are currently occupying my country and supporting a puppet leader?

 

What y'all are forgetting is that the IRA are nominally Christian. The war on terror is reserved for heathens, not heretics.

Half-assed attempt at humor aside ... I'm not defending the IRA, but hasn't the English government exarcebated the problem, as with the Widgery Comission? I mean, since we're making comparisons to the war on terror, weren't the "five methods" found to be a violation of human rights?

And Phlog, is the franchise in Northern Ireland still based on property ownership?

Finally ... is this issue more complicated than assholes killing each other and bystanders because they (the assholes) can't agree on minorly differing interpretations of a guy who said "Love thy neighbor" ? In other words, are there Protestant Republicans or Catholic Unionists in any significant numbers?

Incidentally, guthrie ... you know the mafia got started as freedom fighters? Yeah. Mafia's an Italian acronym. Can't remember it exactly, but the meaning's something like Death to all Frenchmen. They were hired by landowners in Sicily to deal with the French. What followed from there was predictable, if you've read The Prince. If you haven't, the landowners ultimately created a bigger problem then the one they were trying to deal with.

 

Freedom fighter is yet another term loosely used. Freedom from what exactly? A term used by someone who has never been to the place involved, does not know what the people are like and does not generally know what they are talking about?

There is no oppression in Northern Ireland except that from the "freedom fighters" - there is no oppression from the Police, a "fact" widely reported in the Republican press, and the american press trying, like cowards, to keep on the right side of Irish America.

I stood in Donegal Place, Belfast with my wife one fine sunny afternoon, and said to her "Look along the street, can you tell which "side" is which?"

"No", she said; "there is no visible difference". "Exactly" I replied, there is no difference at all, the people are mixing together quite amiably and doing their shopping and getting on with their lives. The problem with people who do not know what they are talking about is that they think they know everything and are always right, invariably Americans and left wing Brits.

 

More to the point, I have difficulty with R/D's self-righteous overstatement. Even a drunken Irishman isn't that loose with his words.

I mean, he doesn't even know what the hell he's throwing a fit about:

• "My symapthies to the occupied counties; as an American I understand the need to expel the British. But times changed, and much seemed to hinge on Omagh."

Well, you self-righteous twats from the UK ought to stop and think for a moment that, in the face of British movement on Irish issues and a general weariness with the idea of white people killing white people, and with globalism breaking the enchantment Irish culture had in America in favor of other charming, quaint prejudices about other people, what changed and hinged on Omagh was the coffin-lid for pop-culture support for the IRA in the US. That is what changed. That is what hinged on Omagh.

Another fact: We Americans are dubious of plantation politics. It's why people look oddly at a libertarian idea of homesteading.

So I find declarations like R/D's, "It's ours!" or your own "Now here's another fact ... democracy," just a little deceptive compared to the history which leads us from there to here.

I mean, please realize how the age of cable news (post-Gulf War) and the internet (1995-ff) have changed the way people around the world get their information. There was a coverage overdose that set in before the Good Friday Accord that really did confuse a lot of Americans despite the heavy presence of Irish heritage in this country: Wait, wait, wait ... we knew there were some odd things going on, but the UK is actually shepherding riots?

We may have received many of your Irish castoffs, but aside from them, not many in the US ever really believed the UK behaved as poorly as it did. Hell, all the way back in 1848, as the Irish were pouring into the US, American newspapers wrote editorials decrying Irish ingrates for protesting the bureaucratic starvation of Irish people.

So give me a break. The British have had a free ride from the world in Ireland.

As the situation winds down, yes, it looks like Britain will get to keep the counties, and yes, it looks like Britain will never have to apologize because we all know that Britain never made any mistakes as a colonial power and that's why everyone from the Americans to the Irish to the Indians needs to just fuck off.

The fact of occupation alone does not validate any given response. It's the way the occupying power behaves. See above. Namely from "Another fact" on down through the list of people who need to fuck off.

General considerations on the discussion

A general question: Do the British really believe they were well-behaved in their colonial endeavors?

Another general question: I would not accept the things that I protest; would y'all accept the conditions of the British experience in Ireland if you were on the oppressed, starved, and beaten end of that equation?

Would have violated your religion to fulfill the duties of your conscription into armed service? (India.) Would you accept taxation without representation, presumption of guilt, obligation to testify against yourself, and no avenue of recourse? (American colonies.) Would you accept a government prohibiting you from obtaining food? (Ireland.)

Because if you would, then you'd be the perfect country for Americans or anyone else to take over, colonize, and plantation in order to call the end result a democracy.

I mean, in other debates, there are a couple of British fellows around Sciforums who fear Arabs and Islam. So I'll borrow their worst-case scenario, that enough Muslims come to any one European area--in this case, Britain--as to start pushing Islamic values into the laws much as the Judeo-Christian experience inherently defines a number of legalistic ideas in Western culture.

Suddenly, Catholics won't be free to be Catholics in the worst-case scenario; Protestants won't be free to be Protestants. Sharia law would, in the worst-case scenario, apply to all the people. (Remember, I'm drawing someone else's worst-case scenario.)

Now then, presuming that this all comes about at the ballot box and not by a rifle, would you accept it?

A democracy has its obligations to the will of the majority, but also its obligations to the protection of the minority. Otherwise, the 3/5 Rule might still apply. Part of the problem with R/D's outburst at "sanctimonious Americans" is that he's throwing a temper-tantrum in response someone who certainly would like to see the end of military occupations, regardless of whose nation it is.

So of course I'm puzzled that his response to me is to "puke" because of other Americans, namely those who prefer military solutions.

I mean, look at his tale of standing in Donegal Place: As long as the present is sunshine and roses, we need not consider history.

Huxley was right on that count--the British have no need for history. Perhaps some do, as the suddenly find themselves at odds with their government over some issues pertaining to Iraq, but one thing I've never liked about the British presentation of the Irish situation is that we're supposed to pretend throughout that the British never fucked up and the Irish never had cause for complaint. It's about as distasteful to me as when Americans say the same thing about the tribes. It would be one thing if we had been nice about it, but Americans attempted genocide, employed biological warfare, murdered women and children, kidnapped and brainwashed children, and, in one of the truly dramatic tales of our history, pursued the tribe across the territories. It wasn't enough to have the land but we also had to corral this last band that didn't like the deal onto the reservation. The end result? Joseph did the right thing for his people, but we can hardly call it a victory for the US or justice for anyone. And after all these years, our government has reneged on nearly every treaty signed with any tribe, sought to interfere with tribal economic development, and stolen billions of dollars ....

I could have said the same thing about Tacoma, Washington, that one might say about Donegal Place. Of course, even into my high school years of the 80s and 90s, there was still a law on the books that made it illegal to serve liquor to an American Indian. Somebody finally found it and I believe the law was killed just to be official--nobody had paid attention to it for decades, but I don't see how the present of Tacoma changes the facts of its history.

What to do about old wounds is its own question. The world hasn't come to a conclusion about that. What we do know, however, is that empires make mistakes, except for the British, and people who resist the injustices of those mistakes are just plain evil. Hang on for a few more years and the case will be set. It's a precedent much appreciated by Israel and the US.

 

Tiassa - why is that all celebrities from Tacoma (Bundy, the snipers, David Brame) are serial killers?

EDIT: Okay, technically, Brame was a murder-suicide, but still ...

 

Re: Celebs from Tacoma

You forgot Harry Lillis Crosby.

Serial fantasy author Megan Lindholm (see also Robin Hobb is from Tacoma, though not always.

But yeah, it's a short, curious list.

 

Nah, I remembered Bing. But he's an ex-celebrity.

 

Have YOU ever been to Ulster Tiassa, have you ever lived there? Do you know, I mean KNOW the people there, or are your views based on pro irish american press? I HAVE lived there, and DO know the people. They do not WANT Dublin. Terrorists or whatever you want to call them do NOT represent the people of Northern Ireland and any so called support is done purely on the basis of "If I don't, accidents happen". The preople of Eire do not want either the terrorists nor the 6 counties back either. Thats official, referendum results, and any claim to the 6 counties has been removed from the Eire constitution.

When I told me little girl that we were going to live in Northern Ireland, she cried her eyes out, but the blow up people daddy and shoot bullets!!! I reassured her that it was not all like that, and the troubles only affected about 1% of the populace and not all the time. When it came for us to leave Northern Ireland she was the one who did not want to leave. She loved the place, the people, her school friends, the countryside. Now, she is grown and studying to be a Vet Nurse and when she qualifies, would like to move to Eire.

 

I have no words to express my contempt for you.

I mean, I've even explained to the Phlog what you overlooked. So just go have another fucking round.

Get the fuck over yourself. You've got some guilt complex about Northern Ireland that I fully admit I don't understand. If you really want to be that priggishly oversensitive, then by all means do so.

Pick a sentence out of context just to have a self-righteous tantrum? Go screw. That's fucking pathetic, Devil.

 

Yeah, but so are Bundy and Brame.

 

Damn your logic!

But I'd say Ted Bundy's better known than Crosby, and the snipers definitely.

Brame admittedly never got that far out of Pierce County.

 

Well ... it's not like Tacoma's really that glamorous. What it does have going for it, though, is that the pollution once chased Bruce Springsteen out of town (literally), and also a commitment to keep every residence and business within the city limits wired for broadband.

That and Jack Cady taught at Pacific Lutheran University, just over in Parkland, but he lived out in Port Townsend, a town that can also claim Raymond Carver as a one-time resident.