Monday, May 12, 2008
“explosion in the Castlederg area of County Tyrone”
According to a BBC report[new BBC NI link]
Reports are coming in of an explosion in the Castlederg area of County Tyrone. There are no further details at present.
I’ll update when details emerge. There was an earlier hoax alert in south Belfast. More from the BBC report - “It is thought that one person may have been injured. It is also believed a vehicle is being examined in relation to the incident.” Update from the BBC report, “It is understood that an off-duty police officer has been injured in the under-car booby trap explosion. It is believed he suffered serious leg injuries, but they are not thought to be life-threatening.”
Pete Baker @ 09:21 PM
Provo bigwig Pat Doherty’s comment that it is an absolute outrage is absolutely funny. Doherty’s brother is a convicted mass killerIt is like Charles Manson being appalled at a schoolboy running is hands up a nun’s dress.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:21 AMDave
Just visited your website. My initial impression was that there weren’t nearly enough references to ‘fags’ in it.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:31 AMlocal stores and shopping malls where warned of possible bomb threats on Saturday.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:56 AMNote to Provisional Alliance supporters: If it was ever right, then it is still right. I’ll have to delay my application to join the crown forces for another while. And Dive O’Connell - Pat Doherty’s brother is not Pat Doherty no matter about your gutter press comparisons.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 09:25 AMDec,
lol. How do you be a political dissenter and stifle dissent on blogs?
Is dissent only for this guy?
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:15 AMThe bombers and their few supporters need to get themselves out of their 1970s timewarp fast.
Meanwhile, I wish the injured police officer a full recovery and his colleagues full support in tracking and arresting the culprits. More at Belfast and Beyond.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:29 AMI would like to join with those in wishing the injured officer a full and speedy recovery and that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 12:06 PMFact: The overwhelming majority of the electorate on both sides of the border voted for the GFA, including the fact that partition will remain until NI votes itself out of the UK.
Fact: Thirty years of republican terrorism failed to achieve a UI and has almost certainly delayed it.
Fact: The dissidents have only a tiny fraction of the support the provos enjoyed/demanded and can only look forward to derision, infiltration and long prison sentences.
Fact: The vast majority in NI have moved on, are enjoying prosperity and have better things to do than put up with a bunch of neanderthal arseholes who still think that blowing people’s legs off is going to ‘free Ireland.’
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 12:13 PMspot on Gerry,
Its noteworthy how David Vance only gets excited when these events occur, rejoicing in the bloodthirstiness to score points.
The rest of the time he condemns the peace process at every opportunity and bemoans and bewails progress towards a lasting settlement.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 12:24 PMNote to Provisional Alliance supporters: If it was ever right, then it is still right.
I’m not so sure about that. There was a time when it was ok to carpet bomb Dresden, but it would be frowned on now.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 01:57 PM“If it was ever right, then it is still right.”
Which is why the rest of us have to work all the harder to ensure that these violent, political automata do not progress, because ending violence was ever right.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 02:14 PMSuperb point Crone, absolutely masterful. Can you go one teeny tiny step further, and see if you can work out all by yourself, what separates the Germany & Dresden of today, from say the Dresden & Germany of 1939-1945? Mull it over, consult wikipedia, ask a friend: the answer will come to you.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 02:17 PM“There was a time when it was ok to carpet bomb Dresden, but it would be frowned on now.”
Maybe a certain poster would still be up for it?
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 02:22 PMThere was a time when it was ok to carpet bomb Dresden, but it would be frowned on now.
Would it, all other things being equal? I didn’t see anyone holding levers of power in either Britain or America applying the brakes before Fallujah happened.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 03:36 PMSo, Ahern, because Germany was at war ( by that stage a war that they had lost ) and run by the nazis it was somehow acceptable to flatten a city full of civilians and wounded? Try typing ‘Bomber Harris’ into Google or Wikipedia and judge for yourself.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 03:55 PMThere was a rumour that Martin had contacted Seamus Mallon to see if he would loan him his Book of Condemnatory Stoop Phrases as he foresees the time coming when they can be re-used. Remember ‘… these people have no support etc etc’
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 04:25 PM“If it was ever right, then it is still right.”--Pancho’s Horse
Enough with the obtuseness, Pancho’s Horse. Do you think it is right to blow up a Catholic policeman’s legs out from under him while he’s driving, or don’t you? How about Rosemary Nelson’s? And if you do think it is right, have the balls --- sorry, the ovaries—to say so directly.
Are you an explosives expert yourself, Pancho’s Horse, or does it just bolster your self-image to cheer anonymously on the internet encouraging others who might potentially have lives worth living to travel on a path certain to bring death and/or dismemberment to their targets, and in all probabilty gaol, exile, death or dismemberment to themselves too?
And yes, before anyone asks, i’ve no more use for someone blowing up off-duty Protestants than off-duty Catholics, but it does seem that off-duty Catholic officers (otherwise known as “crown forces” to the drama queens among us) are the targets lately. What is the great strategy behind that, O Steed of Pancho? Making sure if an underage Catholic is raped and beaten, or an elderly Catholic couple living near a peace line is burned out of their home by loyalists on the Twelfth, they have a better chance of encountering a UFO than a Catholic police officer coming to their aid?
“If it was ever right, then it is still right.” Spend a few nights on the burn unit, Pancho’s Horse. It will come to yout.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 05:03 PMThe irony of McGuinness’strident condemnation of this attack is that it was carried out by people using exactly the same justification as used by the provies themselves in hundreds of similar attacks against ‘crown forces’.(once one of martin’s favourite terms for the peelers).
Now that the RA have packed it in Martin should feel comfortable enough to go the whole hog and retrospectively condemn all these acts also as having been ‘idiotic’, ‘criminal’ and having contributed nothing towards the ‘attainment of a free Ireland’.Now that really would be burning bridges!Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 05:53 PMI disagree with the idea that the se people are in the same postion as martic mCguinness was when he used violence.
I disagreed with his use of violence, but that doesn’t mean the two situations are the same.
We are now in a situation where self determination has been exercised and the people of Ireland have voted overwhelmingly for the current political situation.My thoughts go out to the injured man and his family.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 06:45 PMTAFKABO, The rationale used by these people is exactly the same as that used by McGuinness as a young man i.e. physical force republicanism as a means of achieving a united Ireland.The difference now of course is that Martin’s generation of physical force activists failed and that he is now in a position of ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’Let him explain how it was right for him and not right for others.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:16 PMSusan,it doesn’t help when things have to be explained. I was merely noting the hypocrisy of the Provisional Alliance who justified bombing and killing for 30 years and now must, having painted themselves into a corner, rise to condemn Óglaigh na hÉireann. If they were crown forces and fair game then, what has changed? Nobody in any country can state categorically that they will never use force in pursuit of their objectives ever again and this will include maiming and killing - be it Arabs or PSNI. Like yourself, I think that the police officer’s religion has no relevance BUT they are paid servants of the British Crown and that, Susan, is why they are called Crown forces. An dtuigeann tú?
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:44 PMThey are the same in terms of the justification that was/is proffered by those who engaged in that activity, despite the obfuscation of those who formerly engaged in that activity that allows them to engaged in the politically expedient double-speak of condemning those who engage in that activity without condemning those who formerly engaged in it.
Remember, that “self-determination” applied to the Irish people as a collective (being a collective and not an individual right). The Provos did not seek independence for Northern Ireland, nor claim that they had a right to self-determination that was based on being an ethnic group that was other than Irish. Since there is only one valid claim to self-determination per nation and the majority of Irish people had attained national self-determination and exercised self-determination in opposition to the murder campaign of those who had not yet attained national self-determination, that murder campaign never had any legitimacy. Indeed, the propaganda of the Provos is so masterful that they can act against self-determination (the will of the majority) and still pass themselves off as being pro self-determination!
So, in terms of cosmetic exercises, such as the vote on both sides of the murder to support the GFA or a majority of Irish people within Northern Ireland voting for Sinn Fein, those cosmetic exercises don’t alter the underlying reality - just the perceptions of it in accordance with the agenda and the propaganda. Just to make it more obvious: it doesn’t matter if a majority of the Irish people in Northern Ireland support murder gangs since the right to self-determination applies to all Irish people, and the majority of Irish people did not support murder gangs - hence the Irish government, acting on behalf of Irish people, proscribed them and rightly criminalised their activity.
The Deputy First Minister and other members of his favourite murder gang are as much a blackguard as the members of the gang who inflicted harm on the policeman in question: there is no difference between them.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:49 PMErr, the above post is in reply to:
“I disagreed with his use of violence, but that doesn’t mean the two situations are the same.
We are now in a situation where self determination has been exercised and the people of Ireland have voted overwhelmingly for the current political situation.” - TAFKABOPosted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:51 PM........and what happened to that policeman should not have happened for the simple reason that it is pointless. If 30 years has shown us anything,surely it has shown us that.But neither me nor mine will spend any time in the crown forces as hired guns for HMG. I fail to see the relevance of the burns unit. Was that a threat?
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:52 PMSusan is too gentle and pensive a soul to threaten you, Pancho. Her point was that familiarity with the reality of human pain serves to make a person less inclined to inflict suffering on others.
That is a valid observation for normal people but somewhat ignores the reality that 3% of the population are psychopaths (finding a forum for their malign enterprise within murder gangs), and enjoy inflicting suffering on others because of the sense of empowerment they derive from it and other pathologies associated with their dismal condition.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:09 PM
