Re: Selective Memory
Actually, the good folk of Andytown are brimful with pride that the "boys" pulled this one off
Madonna I think its far from Andersonstown you picked up on any such notion. Given your deeply held anti-Catholic / anti-Republican views I would consider it a highly dangerous place for you to go around soliciting anyones views on the IRA or its culpability...given it is inhabited mainly by Catholics and Republicans.
No, I think you've just been reading too much of Sam Smyths scribblings in the Indo.
Hell...maybe you
are Sam Smyth, all that "Well Well Well" stuff...was that the famous Sam Smyth Stutter or just an outbreak of verbal (textual?) diahorrea?
Always remember Madonna...whatever the man on the street thinks...material proof is the decider. Anything else is just idle speculation and the devils handywork....as Big Ian would say.
In fairness to the police commissioner I think he said there was evidence pointing in a certain direction, but they would not - as is their right or the right of any investagitive police force - not release this information at this point in time.
More verbal gymnastics from Rabbit.
I watched a BBC4 news program a few days ago in which four current affairs commentators - a Frenchman, a German, a Yank and a Brit - all expressed amazement and confusion (their words) at the press conference held by Orde. They all pointed out quite correctly that no Police Commisioner could possibly express the views he did without realising the impact they would have on the peace process and therefore without explicit clearance from Government. And given his lack of any shred of evidence to backup his assertions the only conclusion they could therefore draw was that the British Government - for some reason - was content to see the peace process derailed on a whim. This they found disturbing and counter productive...as do I.
I have no difficulty accepting the consequences for the peace process if Orde had an iota of evidence to back up his pronouncement, but without it - the simple bald fact stands - that he, with the concensus of the British Government, has arbitrarily set out to destroy the process.
Rubbish. As long as most people in Northern Ireland wanted to say in the UK, The UK would not desert them because of a scattering of terrorists....what a laugh.
It appears you haven't been reading the just released documents from the period. Here's a
link....the laughs on you.
Re William Craig: You cannot tar an entire community with the same brush.
No? Who was Craig? Was he not the Home Affairs Minister in Stormont? A Government representative? A founding member and Leader of the far right
Vanguard Party? Was it a One Man Party?
And what about
Paisley, who also advocated taking up arms in 1974 to destroy the power sharing that Madonna erroneously asserted was already 'on the cards' in 1969?
What about the bigotted and sectarian
Orange Order, its 75,000 membership and anti Catholic triumphalism? What about the
UVF and UDA - the strong men that backed up the Loyalist leadership with their guns and bombs? What about the general Protestant population of NI who acted illegally against HM Government in 1974 and used [broken link removed] to shut the country down...all to make sure Taigs had NO SAY in the running of the state.
At what point do you remove the blinkers and recognise that the ingrained sectarianism of the Protestant establishment in NI was not just a misrepresentation of "isolated loonies" in the Loyalist camp?