[Gank]

ALL PARTICIPANTS

Not just one. You're saying its all right for loyalists to continue their violence and keep their guns but the IRA is ? Can you say Hypocrite? IRA decomissioned some weapons, loyalists refused to do the same, yet the IRA is to blame for the deadlock? Bull****.

Originally posted by SadisticSid
And don't blither on about links from government to paramilitary forces when the leader and deputy leader of Sinn Fein were both IRA commanders during the height of violence and who by right should be rotting to death in prison right now.

As were several DUP members. But you're not going to want to hear about that either.

Its pretty obvious you're heavily biased towards one side here., I'm not going to waste my time debating pure hypocrisy like this.

Btw if you think either bush or Kerry is going to lean heavy on the IRA in an election year you're an idiot.

[aldo_14]

**** em.  They're both at fault

  Shove both the UDP & Sinn Fein out the parliament unless they promise complete & immediate decomissioning - there should be plenty of moderate parties out there who aren't tainted by terrorism.  And if there's not, provide funding for them - whether unionist or nationalist.  

Then give the people of Northern Ireland a referendum on being part of the UK or Eire.

And lock up all the released terrorists until this happens.  If the IRA or UVf carries out an attack, promise to double the sentences of all their prisoners - i.e. hostages.  Play them at their own game.

[vyper]

Originally posted by Gank


British government itself was linked to loyalist paramilitarys, financing them, supplying them intel and using them as death squads so they couldnt really say much about it. Besides you cant have peace talks with only one side of the conflict now can you? I'm not saying anything about moral superiority. Yes you're right you can't have peace talks but you can put certain conditions on.



Bit of a difference rescueing hostages from an embassy under siege in London with an army of freindly surrounding it and rescueing hostages from an embassy under siege in Tehran with a country of hostiles surrounding it. Its probably just as well the deltas hit that sandstorm, the operation was a bit ambitious to say the least I'm still putting money on the SAS/British Army managing it.
 

[karajorma]

I've always said that the goverment could have ended the threat of the Real IRA by telling the IRA prisonners who got early release that they'd be thrown back in jail if attacks continued. The Real IRA would have shown up with their throats cut within a week.  

[karajorma]

Originally posted by vyper
 I'm still putting money on the SAS managing it

I'd put money on them at least being able to check the weather report and realise that strong winds + desert = sandstorm

[SadisticSid]

The political wing of the UVF is the PUP and the political wing of the UDA/UFF is the UDP. Don't sour the DUP's name with such garbage.

Aldo, such a referendum happened 25 years ago, and in a far more violent time. It would be unlikely to happen again because the answer would no doubt be the same as it was then - that most residents of NI would want to stay part of the UK. The republicans would never advocate such a course of action, obviously. Why else would the unionist parties have most of the vote?

And Gank, I don't think Kerry would make a big deal out of this for the moment, at least. But the current policy of non-interference from the US is the only correct one, and Kerry is an idiot for even considering otherwise.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
The political wing of the UVF is the PUP and the political wing of the UDA/UFF is the UDP, both separatist parties. Don't sour the DUP's name with such garbage.
 

Fixed.  I did believe it was the UDP, actually, it was just the DUP references in earlier posts that confused me.

Originally posted by SadisticSid
Aldo, such a referendum happened 25 years ago, and in a far more violent time. It would be unlikely to happen again because the answer would no doubt be the same as it was then - that most residents of NI would want to stay part of the UK. The republicans would never advocate such a course of action, obviously. Why else would the unionist parties have most of the vote?
 [/B]

Well, promise regualr, 15-yealy referendums.  Take the decision out of the politicians and terrorists hands, and put it into the peoples.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by SadisticSid

I'm sure Vietnam wasn't the most clean war waged, but Kerry's barbaric assumptions - assumptions by his own admission - say wonders about his views on his fellow soldiers. May Bush stay comfortable in the Oval Office, if only to keep this idiot out.

I'm sorry if it doesn't sit well with you, but its the truth. Its been well documented by now, and barbaric is the only term for it. Or do you somehow think that just because it was Americans, they were incapable of it? He's an idiot for not burying his head in the sand about the atrocities in Vietnam?

And I'll just keep quite on the Irish/British stuff, cause I can't speak inteligently. But, wasn't the entire Anglican religion (or offshoot, whatever) created cause the King wanted a divorce? Seems a shallow thing to found a religion on.

[Liberator]

That wouldn't solve the problem though, only delay it.  The terrorists would still attack and the government would ***** about not being able to do anything about it.

If they had any balls at all, they would quit wasting their time with the damn paperwork and dust every single one of the buggers.  I mean it's not like the government doesn't know who they are.

[SadisticSid]

Originally posted by Rictor


I'm sorry if it doesn't sit well with you, but its the truth. Its been well documented by now, and barbaric is the only term for it. Or do you somehow think that just because it was Americans, they were incapable of it? He's an idiot for not burying his head in the sand about the atrocities in Vietnam?

I'm not denying there were atrocities during the Vietnam war. Far from it (although I can't quite believe Americans beheading civilians as Kerry asserts, unless you can show me evidence to the contrary). Only that Kerry's use of his 'war record' (and objection to the war in which he fought) and 'support of veterans' (despite tarring many no doubt innocent soldiers with the same brush) shows what a hypocrite he is.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Liberator
 I mean it's not like the government doesn't know who they are.

Ever heard of the term 'sleeper cell'?

[Gank]

DUP member John Smyth for South Antrim is a convicted UVF bomber. Ian Paisley himself has admitted in the house of commons he was a member of an illegal paramilitary organisation in the past. Apparently its ok for these former terrorists to be in government while for other former terrorists its not.

Aldo, they are both at fault, IRA/Sinn Fein hasnt done as much as it should and the DUP's been anti-agreement from the start, problem is you cant do anything without either. Theres a few moderate partys, but given the history of the north the hardliners get more support, hatred and fear are easier to run on then tolerance.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by Rictor


I'm sorry if it doesn't sit well with you, but its the truth. Its been well documented by now, and barbaric is the only term for it. Or do you somehow think that just because it was Americans, they were incapable of it? He's an idiot for not burying his head in the sand about the atrocities in Vietnam?

And I'll just keep quite on the Irish/British stuff, cause I can't speak inteligently. But, wasn't the entire Anglican religion (or offshoot, whatever) created cause the King wanted a divorce? Seems a shallow thing to found a religion on.

On the Anglican religion, that's about right. They broke off from the Roman Catholic Church because the Pope refused to annul Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragón.

[Gank]

He also made himself head of the church. Got married 6 time iirc, though some of them he killed instead of divorcing.

[Bobboau]

Rictor, I just want to hear you say, that the Americans wern't the only ones doing bad things in Vietnam.

[Grey Wolf]

I was just referring to what kicked it off. After that, of course, you had an interesting hundred years or so, with the death of the Plantagenet line, the ascension of the Stuarts, the execution of Charles I by Oliver Cromwell, Charles II reclaiming the crown, and then James II being replaced by the current ruling family.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Gank

Aldo, they are both at fault, IRA/Sinn Fein hasnt done as much as it should and the DUP's been anti-agreement from the start, problem is you cant do anything without either. Theres a few moderate partys, but given the history of the north the hardliners get more support, hatred and fear are easier to run on then tolerance.

Well, yeah - didn't I just say that?  

That's why you get rid of the hard-liners.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Bobboau
Rictor, I just want to hear you say, that the Americans wern't the only ones doing bad things in Vietnam.

Of course not. No one, myself included, is suggesting that the VC had any reservations regarding brutality in warfare. But I'de like you hear you say that neither did the Americans. Hard though it may be for you to believe, I am not one to go after the Americans without some thought put into the matter. Vietnam was a bloody, messy war, on both sides.

There is something to be said for the opportunity for attrocities, since the Americans had no civilians on the ground while the Vietnamese had, well, a whole country.

[Gank]

Aldo, the problem is you cant get rid of them because they both get the most votes from their respective communitys, cut them out and the bombs start going off again. Better to have them arguing over a table.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Gank
Aldo, the problem is you cant get rid of them because they both get the most votes from their respective communitys, cut them out and the bombs start going off again. Better to have them arguing over a table.

Meh.  Gotta do something to get them moving...... at the moment they won;t speak to each other, let alone argue.

Threats, coercion, bribes, whatever.

EDIt - I know, I know, it's stupid and insane and whatnot.  But they;ve tried everything else, and maybe it is time for desperate measures.  We have enough sectarian problems in Glasgow, and we're across the sea......