Friday, January 11, 2008
Loyalist Paramilitaries: Their uselessness to unionism.
I think my views on loyalist paramilitaries have been well documented in the past but for any new readers or those with short memories I am totally opposed to all loyalist paramilitary violence. I hope those reading this thread from a nationalist / republican, outsider or non loyalist unionist position will give me a little latitude here as this blog is really addressed to any with a sneaking regard for loyalist paramilitaries.
Okay let us get this one out of the way at the start. Some unionist politicians flirted dangerously with paramilitaries on a number of occasions during the troubles. The UWC strike and the 1977 strike are occasions where mainstream unionist politicians were far too close to loyalist terrorists. Of course we also need to mention Ulster Resistance; amongst Paisley’s least glorious hours. Robinson’s “invasion” of Clontibret is no better. I know a number of people who were out with their shotgun licences on Slemish and similar nonsense; as far as I know they all regret it now and none of them committed any crimes.
The purpose of this blog is not, however, for me to pour out apologies for the very minor extent to which unionist leaders were involved with paramilitaries. No doubt the moral relativists will be out in force denouncing unionists in general and me in particular as a hypocrite; that I can bear. Instead what I want to do is take the opportunity to ask in a deliberately amoral fashion whether or not loyalist paramilitarism was ever of any real political benefit to unionism. I will not comment on this thread on the murder by loyalists of Protestants nor their assorted acts of criminality. They are already damned by these acts even if their “war” had been effective or morally acceptable. We will for the mean time, however, leave aside these vast elephants in the room.
The loyalist paramilitaries and their associated political cheerleaders clearly felt that they had a use to unionism. Essentially this perceived use was, I would submit, in at least four areas.
Let us list them and then analyse them one by one:
1). They defended the unionist community from the IRA.
2). They were a bulwark against any sell out by London and could have saved us in a civil war.
3). They provided “muscle” during protests by the unionist community and, hence, gained political victories.
4). By their actions they created such fear in the nationalist / republican community that this community pressurised the IRA into ending its violent campaign against unionists.
Now let us analyse these propositions. Before we do so it is important to note that even if by some chance we find that loyalist paramilitaries were politically useful to unionism, their immoral and evil actions in intimidating, injuring and murdering members of the nationalist community would render any benefit worse than null and void; it would make the “benefit” actually a disadvantage. Such an analysis (based as it is on morality) is of course of no use in debating with a loyalist cheerleader. As such on with the amoral analysis:
1). This is the easiest to dismiss. Let us dismiss it with one name to begin with; my late father in law’s friend Douglas Derring; a Brethern shop keeper in Roslea murdered by the IRA. South Armagh and South Fermanagh Protestants were known to be targeted by the IRA. Some were in the police and army, others such as Derring were not. We can argue about this being ethnic cleansing; that is an argument to be had with republicans. Had, however, loyalist paramilitaries been remotely interested in defending Protestants an extremely good place to start would have been on the border especially in places like South Fermanagh. What do we find: absolutely no defence of the unionist people by loyalist paramilitaries. Indeed in South Armagh we have the spectacle of the Reavey and O’Dowd murders providing a supposed excuse for the Kingsmill massacre. Hence, we see that on the border the loyalist defenders of the unionist people achieved an entirely negative result and merely increased the danger to border Protestants. Turning to Belfast and its environs; I can off hand think of not a single case where loyalist paramilitaries managed to prevent the IRA murdering anyone and since the IRA murdered so many people during the troubles it does not seem reasonable to regard loyalist paramilitaries as a deterrent. According to Sutton: in sum total the loyalist terrorists murdered 1020 people of which 42 were republican paramilitaries and I do not think one was at the time trying to kill anyone.
2). The bulwark or doomsday scenario. Initially it must be stressed that this was, has always and will always be an adolescent fantasy. This supposes that if by some chance the British had suddenly left, the IRA or the Irish army would try to start a war. Whilst it is likely that the IRA would have tried to increase its campaign of murder it is much less likely that the Irish army would suddenly march on Northern Ireland. In any case there was a large and pretty effective armed police force (the RUC) which seemed quite capable of stopping very many IRA activities. Additionally there was the UDR which contained actual trained soldiers. Finally there was the Territorial Army. As such there were more than enough trained people to save Ulster. In addition they would have had a large quantity of modern small arms of mainly the same type, large quantities of high quality, compatible ammunition and even access to a small number of heavy weapons from the TA. What would not have helped would have been a force of untrained, frequently semi literate thugs with a motley assortment of firearms, dubious quantities and qualities of ammunition, no heavy weapons, no proper communications equipment and no discipline. The old 1912 UVF whatever the rights and wrongs of that organisation the alphabet soup never were.
3). The “muscle” argument. This is the most difficult to dismiss. It is undoubtedly true that during the UWC strike loyalist paramilitaries were heavily involved in intimidation. However, the strike was largely supported even in areas with no loyalist paramilitaries, it is very likely that it would have proceeded, gathered momentum and defeated power sharing without any need for criminal activity. Most importantly, however, power sharing was overwhelmingly defeated in the pooling booths. Had there been no UWC strike the unionist population could, and (rightly or wrongly) almost certainly would have voted the Faulkner faction out of power. This would also then have prevented the political problems of allowing the opponents of unionism to point to the loyalists’ involvement in the strike.
In 1977 the issue is simpler as not only was the strike foolish, the involvement of loyalist hardmen wrong but also of course the strike failed ending as it did the career of one Ian Paisley (oh no it did not, I forgot). At Drumcree the story is little different. Even if (and it is no small if; but if) the Orangemen got down the Garvaghy Road due to loyalist paramilitaries (I argue they did not); they no longer do so; hence, again a propaganda defeat for unionism and yet again an example of loyalism failing to effectively help unionism.
4). Pressurising Roman Catholics who then pressurised the IRA. This is of course the favourite hobby horse of the loyalist cheerleaders. It forgets that the IRA campaign failed completely to force unionists to change their position and support a united Ireland. Indeed it drove them away from that proposition. By extension; why would murdering old men in bars or bookmakers shops cause nationalists to oppose people who claimed to be their (the nationalists) defenders. It is completely illogical as well as forgetting that if you hurt a community in that way it will tend to do the opposite of what its assailants want. Rather the alphabet soup’s campaign was much more likely to drive young nationalists into the arms of violent republicans in a desire for revenge.
I could go on and on (as I have) but I think that it is necessary to dispassionately disabuse any loyalist of any shred of logical and intellectual legitimacy for their campaign. Their campaign was immoral, illogical and contributed negatively to the unionist cause.
I accept that some nationalists / republicans will now also come on to denounce me as a bigot. This is a hazard I will happily accept in order to attack a cohort of people for whose views I do believe I have even more contempt than I have for those of the IRA cheerleaders. In regard to IRA cheerleaders I at least do not have the added burden that loyalist cheerleaders give me by claiming to have committed their crimes for my community’s benefit.
Now do any of the loyalist cheerleaders want to come and try to argue their case?
Turgon @ 11:47 PM
Turgon I suspect not - you are aware of my views on this subject as well and I will happily second that motion. It is ironic that I managed (sometimes only just) to remain a member of the UUP for nearly 10 years despite disagreeing fundamentally with the direction it began to take months after I joined but felt obliged to resign only when despite opposing unreconstructed terrorists in government they had no objection to one joining the Assembly Group (but he was one of ours so that was ok).
Perhaps we can now hear the mirror image of these arguments from the other side of the fence - any volunteers?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 12:31 AMTurgon, overall a very lucid and well written rebuttal to so-called ‘cheerleaders’ which admittedly, i have been accused of in the past. A few points though, but as your quill is not aimed in my direction, I’ll sit and enjoy the forthcoming jousts. Nice to see you blogging now, not sure if you did before, but about time !
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 12:39 AMTurgon
I know your self depricating style strikes a resonance with some but to me it just confirms that your posts are just complete shite masquareding as reasonablnessSome unionist politicians flirted dangerously with paramilitaries on a number of occasions during the troubles
Bullshit the unionist leadership were up to their necks in fenian blood and denying it the whole time.Before we do so it is important to note that even if by some chance we find that loyalist paramilitaries were politically useful to unionism, their immoral and evil actions in intimidating, injuring and murdering members of the nationalist community would render any benefit worse than null and void; it would make the “benefit” actually a disadvantage
What about the immoral and evil actions they carried out against their own community. More moral relevance bullshitIn any case there was a large and pretty effective armed police force (the RUC) which seemed quite capable of stopping very many IRA activities
The IRA was never that interested in pitched battles but the cowards of the alphabet murderers really only ever attacked any one in multiples. They couldnt with stand a sustained barage of cookies from a girl guides troup
At Drumcree the story is little different. Even if (and it is no small if; but if) the Orangemen got down the Garvaghy Road due to loyalist paramilitaries (I argue they did not); they no longer do so
Yeah and all it took was the murder of a family of small children, definately a proud moment of unionismI accept that some nationalists / republicans will now also come on to denounce me as a bigot. This is a hazard I will happily accept in order to attack a cohort of people for whose views I do believe I have even more contempt than I have for those of the IRA cheerleaders. In regard to IRA cheerleaders I at least do not have the added burden that loyalist cheerleaders give me by claiming to have committed their crimes for my community’s benefit.
like I said self depricating crap in lieu of arguement
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 02:32 AMThat’s the most sickening blog I’ve ever seen on this site but at the same time it completely sums up the hand wringing attitude of unionists i.e. the pseudo gangs were nothing to do with us, we backed the forces of law and order at ever point (even though they ran the death squads). Unionist/NIO/RUC/UDR/Loyalist/MI5/UDA/UFF/UVF – all part of the same murder machine whether you have the balls to recognise it or not.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 02:59 AMThe problem, Turgon, is that I have never once felt the need to say “I am totally opposed to all Loyalist violence”, because it’s obvious from my actions. So why do so many Unionists feel the need to say it? Why is it not obvious? That is the question.
Your headline itself immediately raised alarm bells - “their uselessness to Unionism”. The underlying point I take from that is that you oppose Loyalist violence because it is useless to Unionism. But that’s a tactical reason, not a moral one.
The whole basis for opposing Loyalist violence shouldn’t be that it makes Unionists look bad, but that it is morally wrong - it causes untold grief and suffering for no benefit to anyone but a few racketeers.
Unionists, like so-called ‘Republicans’, must decide whether their opposition to violence is moral or merely tactical. When the day comes that it’s the former, it’ll be so obvious they will never need to explain that they are opposed to it.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 03:00 AMI think that I agree with most of what you say. However in the spirit of amorality I would contend that there may have been a “use” for loyalist paramilitarism in relation to point 2, not as some effective doomsday army but rather in terms of pre-doomsday PR.
Republicans like to fantasise that they are living in colonial India and that the removal of the “British presence” would result in a just and happy sweetness and light scenario. In reality, realistically, a forced withdrawal of the British army would more likely result in something more akin to Bosnia circa 1992.
The fact that loyalists were players served to counter Republican lies (to themselves not just others) that they were fighting a war against some foreign presence rather than the reality that they were fighting a war for the political conquest of their neighbours on ethnic (in the wider sense) grounds.
In some ways, in the early 1990s, when Loyalists started to outkill Republicans they effectively lost something of the whole anti-colonialist fantasy in terms of propaganda.
In a sense Loyalist violence established that their were three players with a stake in the game, not two.
The peace process was in many ways a result of Republicans learning to have to deal with unionists as central protagonists rather than merely semi relevant spectators who would naturally fall in line to their subordinate position if the “real Brits” left.
There is however always the argument that a policy of tit for tat which guarantees that for every Protestant that the IRA killed then as regular as clockwork within the next fortnight a roughly equal number of Catholics will be lying dead on the pavement in some sense trained the nationalist community to stop the corporate nexus of support for violence in the same way that hitting a puppy on the nose with a newspaper when it poops on the carpet shows that acts have consequences and suffering will be met with equal and opposite suffering actually shortened the IRA campaign. I’m not convinced of that but it *IS* hard to judge in an entirely rational and amoral manner. I predict that few will be capable of discussing it entirely rationally without recourse to moral rather than mechanical cause and effect judgments if they chose to reply to this. Let’s see.
Again I emphasise that the foregoing is in the spirit of sheer amorality (though I predict that many people will now accuse me of immorality).
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 03:44 AMI know I’ve said it before Turgon but your July stuff is causal shite. Would love Unionism as a body to take a really tough look at that and re-organise the tribal celebrations in a less offensive (and perhaps more self confident) manner. The place just goes mad and it’s your fault.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 05:13 AMSorry Turgon, you called them Loyalist “Paramilitaries”. If you cant denounce them as Loyalist Criminals, or Loyalist Terrorists, then you are characterising them as as a loyalist militia and as such implying some kind of justification, no matter how long the explanation or argument.
To their credit the SDLP denounced the IRA/INLA etc consistently throughout the troubles. The UUP and DUP were not so consistent regarding loyalist activity and indeed, were deafeningly silent or unequivocal when it suited.
[good blog though]
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 05:15 AMI have to endorse posts 3 4 and 5 By by the way whats an Elenwe it sounds like some sort of critter John boy an Granpa kept in the barn for immoral purposes.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 06:55 AMOkay I have been attacked as I predicted. I am flattered that some people like the style thought. Incidentally I am well aware I use a self deprecating style.
On one specific point, I am entirely happy and indeed keen to use the terms loyalist paramilitary / loyalist terrorist and loyalist criminal entirely interchangeably. The reason for the predominant use of the word paramilitary was that the blog is addressed to those who support these individuals, not to all the rest of you (though you are of course welcome to comment).
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 09:00 AMAlso yes of course I regard them as utterly morally wrong. The reason to use an amoral argument is precisely because they (the loyalist criminals and their supporters) will not respond to a moral argument.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 09:03 AMflybyday
“There is however always the argument that a policy of tit for tat which guarantees that for every Protestant that the IRA killed then as regular as clockwork within the next fortnight a roughly equal number of Catholics will be lying dead on the pavement in some sense trained the nationalist community to stop the corporate nexus of support for violence in the same way that hitting a puppy on the nose with a newspaper when it poops on the carpet shows that acts have consequences and suffering will be met with equal and opposite suffering”Nice post. Shooting dead young boys on their way home from school. Just teaching them a lesson really. That’ll teach those fenian bastards.
Bit like bombing Iraq to payback September 11. Sure they’ree all the same anyway
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 09:19 AMI suppose I could be trite by saying:
‘Politics and its uselessness to Northern Ireland’
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 09:56 AMRed Kangeroo - read the whole post before you complain: flybyday says: “Again I emphasise that the foregoing is in the spirit of sheer amorality (though I predict that many people will now accuse me of immorality).”
Trouble with the tit-for-tat approach was, say the IRA kill a soldier & the UVF in response kill a catholic taxi driver. The IRA do not then say “fair enough we’re quits” but then kill a protestant taxi driver and so it goes on until no-one remembers how it started, but it was probably in 1087.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 11:05 AMRe: number 10. “Self deprecating”????? Methinks you are confusing this with the words/adjectives smug and self satisfied. Self deprecating folks don’t call themselves self deprecating. Remember: self praise is no praise.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 11:06 AM“I think my views on loyalist paramilitaries have been well documented in the past but for any new readers or those with short memories I am totally opposed to all loyalist paramilitary violence.”
If one may infer, you are suggesting you are not opposed to all violence, per se, thereby implying that some violence, such as that employed by the security forces, does not meet with your opposition.
“I could go on and on (as I have) but I think that it is necessary to dispassionately disabuse any loyalist of any shred of logical and intellectual legitimacy for their campaign. Their campaign was immoral, illogical and contributed negatively to the unionist cause.”
If you believe that the security forces were employing a legitimate use of violence, and that said violence led to the defeat of militant republicanism, then it is strange that you distance yourself from loyalist paramilitaries.
Unless you are of the opinion that loyalist paramilitaries were not used to do the things the security forces couldn’t?
So, unless you are saying you are opposed to all violence then your position is logically unsound.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 11:13 AMi don’t believe we will ever know the true extent of how much ‘wallpaper’ was seen by loyalist terrorists. its common knowledge however that they were used by unionist politicians. One issue may people seem to neglect, relating to unionisms reliance or otherwise on loyalists, is that they had ready-made ‘legal’ forces to do their bidding anyway. anyone who would suggest that the RUC, UDR et al were not armed extensions of unionism is needed back in the rubber room !
and no, drumcree does not serve as an example of how impartial or noble the RUC were !Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 12:12 PMDK
“Red Kangeroo - read the whole post before you complain: flybyday says: “Again I emphasise that the foregoing is in the spirit of sheer amorality (though I predict that many people will now accuse me of immorality).” “The original post by flybyday came across to me as a very poor attempt to justify certain peoples attitude to murder.
The old “I am not saying it’s right but you can understand why some people think like that.”
Well you might be able to but I can’t
Amoral, immoral or just plain criminal doesn’t really matter. Innocent lives were destroyed for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
Both sides attempt to hide behind symantics.
Ireland the UK and the world are forced to put up with the criminals walking free and strutting the stage. It’s a price we pay for moving on and thank god most of the criminals have started to join the real world. But don’t tell me they had a cause or a point.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 12:46 PMTurgon,
Thank you for that impassioned contribution. On the fourth point, I would say that republicans probably did feel the pressure from their supporters who felt that their actions were encouraging reprisals from loyalists. In practice, I think the loyalists were just psychopaths who liked killing people, and they didn’t even take specific care to ensure that they weren’t killing “their own”.
Where we disagree is the precise nature of where the unionist politicians, and by extension the electorate who voted them in, sit. We’ll deal with that a bit later.
Peter,
Turgon I suspect not - you are aware of my views on this subject as well and I will happily second that motion. It is ironic that I managed (sometimes only just) to remain a member of the UUP for nearly 10 years despite disagreeing fundamentally with the direction it began to take months after I joined but felt obliged to resign only when despite opposing unreconstructed terrorists in government they had no objection to one joining the Assembly Group (but he was one of ours so that was ok).
Perhaps we can now hear the mirror image of these arguments from the other side of the fence - any volunteers?
Peter, I hope you’ll forgive the ad hominem, but if you did this you’re either ignorant, or a complete eejit. You joined the party that supported Hugh Smyth as Lord Mayor of Belfast, and you seriously believed that they were opposed to terrorists in government ?
I don’t have a problem specifically with the fact that the UUP supported Hugh Smyth. If they want to support the mouthpieces of active terrorism, that is their business. The problem I have is when they support terrorists into roles like this, and then subsequently oppose attempts by other terrorist mouthpieces to get into similar roles. When Alex Maskey was elected as Lord Mayor, the UUP councillors all staged a walkout. The only difference between Maskey and Smyth was that one of them wasn’t a fenian, and coincidentally that is the one that the UUP supported.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 01:11 PMThe core problem here (until recently) has been unionists refusing to countenance progress by engaging with republicans. This is done on the basis that, because republicans are terrorists, they shouldn’t be negotiated with and they shouldn’t have any role in a democracy. This position is entirely reasonable (albeit practically difficult to maintain. Note how the allies, to win success in WW2, had to join with Stalin, who had originally allied himself with Hitler. Sometimes you have to deal with people you don’t like).
I do not dispute that the mainstream unionist parties today never had serious, active, actual paramilitary wings, and their public spokespersons never carried guns and never actually commanded groups of armed men. Unionists use this point to suggest that unionists are, therefore, completely free of blame, and cannot be accused of being part of the problem in the conflict in NI. In practice what they are actually doing is creating a gerrymandered definition of the word “terrorism”, which, like a gerrymandered council constituency, carefully skirts it’s way around parts that they don’t want included.
This means that when unionists say they oppose terrorism, they mean they oppose their particular definition of terrorism. This is why the UWC strike is OK because no shots were fired (ask any UUP politician), or why Turgon felt that he was able to say “no laws were broken” over the matter of gun licenses being waved on Slemish. This is unionism using technicalities to define it’s way out of blame. It doesn’t work. If someone comes to my door, shows me a gun license and says “you better do what I tell you”, that is an act of terrorism.
The approach taken by unionists during the course of the troubles was different from that of the SF and the IRA. They did not join paramilitary organizations; instead they made friends with them, formed backdoor relationships with them, while in public maintaining the ambiguous pretence that they opposed terrorism. If they didn’t do that, then they came out in public to provide them with political cover. The UWC strike was an example of this backdoor alliance at work. The 1977 strike were (failed) attempts by Paisley to claim it for his own. It came to the fore again in 1985, and in 1996 at Drumcree.
This effect can still be seen now. Willie McCrea and Billy Wright. Dodds standing up in Westminster to complain about the proportion of Assets Recovery Agency raids on loyalists, as if this was a bad thing, or writing to the Chief Constable to complain when the Alexander Bar was raided and severl active terrorists were apprehended. Ruth Patterson, describing a loyalist tarring and feathering as understandable. The list goes on. None of these unionist politicians have actually committed an arrestable terrorist act. But the signal they’re sending out is that loyalist terrorist organizations don’t need to worry about being opposed in public. The other, more sinister signal being sent out is that if people in unionist communities wish to stand up and denounce the UVF, UDA or LVF in their midst, their elected representatives will not be standing there with them. No more is this true than in the recent case of Raymond McCartney, an example of a victim of terrorism whose case the unionist politicians ignore. Meanwhile, unionist politicians seemed to have no problem beating a path at Westminster to ensure that there was a full enquiry into the circumstances of the death of Billy Wright.
Today we’re still, all of us, a community blighted by terrorist organizations. These organizations are not going to go away if elected representatives like Patterson and Dodds keep speaking in public to try to get them off the hook. Instead our elected representatives must encourage the police to do more to flush them out, and must unequivocally back the police when they take steps to cut this cancer out. The failure of unionism to proactively do this is the main reason why I feel that they are essentially equivalent to Sinn Fein.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 01:32 PMTurgon
Good blog. I agree completely with your views about loyalist paramilitaries - it would be nice to see someone from the Nationalist/Republican side of the divide take the time to similarly deconstruct the IRA, a force who like the loyalists, tried to make out that their actions were somehow beneficial to their own community.
The thing about the UDA/UVF/LVF ... etc is that they were overtly sectarian - they deliberately targeted innocent Catholics for no reason other than they were Catholic. On the other side of the coin however we are consistently fed this fantasy line that the IRA were not sectarian - I think one of the incidents you highlight in your piece, Kingsmills, is a classic example of why that notion is utter nonsense.
However, the truth is that loyalists are easy targets with which to pin all the blame on (from a Unionist perspective) for ‘our’ part in the Troubles. I agree with others here who talk about ‘hand-wringing’ from a Unionist perspective. There is, what I can only describe as widespread middle-class disassociation/delusion within Unionist circles with regards to the acts of Loyalism. I think a lot of Unionists see themselves as innocent by-standers in all the mess that happened over a 40 year period here - yet these same people unthinkingly vote for loyalist cheerleaders such as Paisley, McCrea, Robinson, even Trimble etc - who have all at some stage flirted with loyalist militia for their own political gain and then conveniently forgot it about it some years later down the line. The hypocrisy within Unionism, especially, is astounding and I say this as a nominal Unionist.
I think everyone in Northern Ireland needs to start asking themselves questions about how they and their own community were involved, and still are involved, in some small part or another in contributing to the deep polarisation of our society. This is a condition that is not going to die away either - irrespective of whether a United Ireland comes our way or not.
We live in different areas - where usually around 90% or so of those who live around us are from our own tribe. We send our kids to different schools. The first thing we do when we meet someone new is suss out their name to sub-consciously gauge which ‘side’ they are on. But IMO the most despicable act of all is that we have chosen, emphatically, time and time again, to elect the very people that caused so much pain and suffering to those in the opposite side of the community from our own. We have vindicated the sectarian gangsters from our past, effectively condoning all those heinous acts for which they were in a large part responsible for and incredibly we have given them free reign to determine our future and perpetuate the cycle of hate. That may not sit comfortably with some of you but that’s the truth and we all have blood on our hands. Highlighting the past deeds of the IRA or loyalist paramilitaries will get us nowhere when it’s surely obvious to any person with a shred of decency that their actions were unspeakably evil and have been to the detriment of all of us. It’s ourselves we should be examining.
It’s 13 years since the Troubles effectively ended. I ask you - Is Northern Ireland now a nice, cosy, non-sectarian place where no suspicion or deep rooted hatred of the other side still exists? No, of course it isn’t and whose fault is that? Are the IRA or loyalist paramilitaries still running around killing 100+ people a year? No. So who is responsible then?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 01:39 PMthe anti-semitic always starts with.....
Some of my *friends* are Jews…
But.....
Apologists are always apologists.....
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 02:42 PMWell obviously, no organisation, not even the Mafia or the Nazi Party, confers no benefit to anybody. Protestant paramilitaries have a role to play in keeping up certain standards in their own communities.
I recall one story of some ordinary decent Protestants living on a 100% Protestant estate, who suffered from a neighbour from hell: a total witch who was making their life unbearable. They complained to the UXX, who obligingly came round and beat her to death with Lambeg drumsticks. It was very nice of them, you don’t get that sort of service from the PSNI, expecially if you only live on a Council Estate. They are a cruel people, but fair, and they ensure that many of the features of urban decline that one encounters in British cities do not come to Northern Ireland.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 03:07 PMSo who is responsible then?
Posted by Diluted Orange on Jan 12, 2008 @ 01:39 PMN
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SPosted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 06:04 PMflybyday
“Nice post. Shooting dead young boys on their way home from school. Just teaching them a lesson really. That’ll teach those fenian bastards.
Bit like bombing Iraq to payback September 11. Sure they’re all the same anyway” “
See, just as I predicted. No the question is really whether, whatever pressure was brought on the IRA by the nationalist community for the IRA to stop killing in the 1990s, did the existence of loyalist tit-for-tat responsive murders, and the fact that if the IRA were to stop those loyalist murders would almost certainly stop too, influence the IRA to be either more likely, less likely or just as likely to call a ceasefire? What would have happened if the nationalist community did not suffer so badly from the reaction to IRA violence and the continuance of IRA violence had have been relatively cost free to them? As I say I’m not convinced overall that loyalist violence did put pressure on the IRA to stop as opposed to egging them on to further atrocity, but I can’t honestly dismiss the possibility as completely irrational or obviously untrue. It’s highly hypothetical of course.
Again though this cannot really be discussed without morality getting in the way of rational analysis. As you have demonstrated.
I guess it boils down to this. If Loyalist violence had never started would we be
A) More likely to be in a united Ireland
B) The union more secure than it is
C) Exactly where we are in terms of the union being secureSure it’s easy to say C or B, since then we are in the right side of morality, just like saying that the IRA’s campaign hasn’t made a united Ireland more likely. But if we don’t have our morality hats on can we easily dismiss A as a rational possibility? I don’t know. I really don’t know, I’m not just using this question as a rhetorical device.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2008 @ 06:52 PM
