Slashdot Mirror

Really, show your working on that one.... Did you mean rarely, as in at least weekly from 1971 through 1985? Spend some time researching the deaths here: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/victims/mckeown/index.html#dataset

Where exactly were you then? Have a read through here:
http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/statemurder.htm

Oh yeah. Rubber bullets killed the following people too:
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbullet.htm

Really, show your working on that one.... Did you mean rarely, as in at least weekly from 1971 through 1985? Spend some time researching the deaths here: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/victims/mckeown/index.html#dataset

Where exactly were you then? Have a read through here:
http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/statemurder.htm

Oh yeah. Rubber bullets killed the following people too:
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbullet.htm

Nothing like Gitmo was ever set up - people committing acts of terrorism were in fact denied the status of terrorists and charged as common murderers, then locked up in civilian jails if found guilty under the normal due process of law.

Actually this part isn't true. For a while in the early 70s there was indefinite detention without trial (known as 'internment'), using section 23 of the Special Powers Act 1922. Hundreds were detained, most were later released without charge. That law never applied outside NI, and was abandoned as a policy it in 1975, since it proved counter-productive.

Throughout "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, even though the military were called in to keep order, all suspected terrorists were processed through a civilian court.

Just to emphasise this bit - no, internment didn't involve the courts. It was a power of the civil authority

(None of this is a justification or even a decent excuse for the terrorist acts in NI, btw, just pointing out that this stuff happened)

Nothing like Gitmo was ever set up - people committing acts of terrorism were in fact denied the status of terrorists and charged as common murderers, then locked up in civilian jails if found guilty under the normal due process of law.

Actually this part isn't true. For a while in the early 70s there was indefinite detention without trial (known as 'internment'), using section 23 of the Special Powers Act 1922. Hundreds were detained, most were later released without charge. That law never applied outside NI, and was abandoned as a policy it in 1975, since it proved counter-productive.

Throughout "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, even though the military were called in to keep order, all suspected terrorists were processed through a civilian court.

Just to emphasise this bit - no, internment didn't involve the courts. It was a power of the civil authority

(None of this is a justification or even a decent excuse for the terrorist acts in NI, btw, just pointing out that this stuff happened)

We know the British methods didn't work because when they did them back in the 70's attacks continued well into the 80's

This website is a very good impartial website that goes over what happened in Northern Ireland, as well as the outcome.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/

Internment is what you are looking for there. You will find that every action of torture, false imprisonment, human shields, etc just helped feed the IRA new recruits.

Once civil rights abuses were stopped, and people treated fairly the amount of violence dropped dramatically, as did support for the IRA and other paramilitary organizations.

as noted by a sibling, you're wrong: this wasn't in response to you at all, but my immediate parent. threading is useful.

on the 98% figure, however: i think you're confusing the turnout with the results. the turnout for the 1973 plebiscite was about 58% (due at least in part to the boycott of a large portion of the Catholic population); the results were over 98% in favor of remaining in the United Kingdom. CAIN has a summary of the plebiscite. Catholics are still a minority in Northern Ireland today, so if you're correct about the population growing there (i have no idea) i imagine they still would've been trounced without the boycott. also of note is this more recent (but smaller) opinion survey showing that 40% of folks in Northern Ireland think of themselves as Unionist while only 22% think of themselves as Nationalist.

the rest of your argument seems to mostly be trying to convince me to hold the position i'm already arguing for. so, um, good job! :-)

> The judicial argument is that, IN SPITE of these established facts, his treatment was unlawful.
> Court concluded it was not. What exactly is wrong ?

Nothing wrong at all. Those countries quoted earlier have similar laws making detention and torture without being charged perfectly legal too.

> He is a terrorist.

Until he is tried and convicted in a court of law no he isn't. Having one law for yourself and another for *terrorists* makes you no better then the terrorists or states quoted earlier.

> Do you have any idea what that word means ?

I have lived in Ireland and England during the worst times of the troubles between the two countries. Do I know what it means? Yes I do. For me and family/friends I know it means having to be taken out school in England for fear of being beaten by children/adults every time the IRA set off a bomb. It means being segregated every time you took a flight or a boat. It means being treated like a criminal every time you entered a pub in England. It means having a rifle pointed point blank range at your face while customs check your car or being detained for over an hour being asked endless stupid questions and then getting an armed police escort to a plane yet.

For others it means being picked up off the street and thrown into a camp where you are tortured for months on end because you may have a similar sounding name as a terrorist or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or due to a clerical error on the pickup warrant. It means not being able to get work because people denote your race/religion to mean terrorist.

All that did was escalate terrorism in Ireland/England.

So I know full well what the word means. Do I agree with terrorism? Fuck no. However throwing laws out the windows or implementing laws of torture and denying rights to people to protect yourself is folly in the extreme and will only bite yous in the ass years from now.

And unless your willing to experience such laws enacted on yourself you have no right to claim that they are good or bad.

Here is more reading material for you.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/intern/index.html

I wish I could mod you up as the parallels between Northern Irelands Internment and Gitmo are frightning.

There is some good reading on Internment here..

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/intern/index.html

Basically people who had nothing to do with terrorism were rounded up (intentionally or due to clerical errors/mistaken identities) and put into a camp where they were tortured and held without any rights. The actions of the 1970's did nothing but increase the number of people joining the IRA which in turn led to more pointless killings.

The only way to fight terrorism is to combat the cause they stand behind. Again the IRA is a good example, had little to no support in Ireland until the Civil rights issues in the 60s-70s. Once the civil rights issues were addressed they have more of less faded away in relation to the support they get.

Until you address the issues of what the people in the Middle East are upset about your going to continue this circle for violence for a long time (Ireland went on for over 40 years). Despite what some people think it is not a case of "they hate our freedoms".

I was merely pointing out (perhaps a little flippantly) that it's common knowledge that the Irish communities of Boston and New York were the prime funders of the various IRA incarnations who killed many, many people in London thoughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Firstly: Irish Americans have been funding Irish Republicanism since long before the present troubles, dating back to late 1800s at least with the founding of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The reason of course there are so many Irish in USA is cause the Brits[1] saw fit to let millions of us starve to death over the course of ten years, and millions more emigrate to USA (and all to avoid the price of grain falling. Ireland was an *exporter* of foodstuffs all throughout the famine.). Irish Americans, perhaps more than others, carry the famine in their cultural memory.

Secondly: Very few people died in London, or even mainland UK in total, compared to how many died in Northern Ireland during the troubles. *Far* more civilians died in NI at the hands of the UK state apparatus than British civilians did in UK mainland at hands of IRA. (See this for source).

It escaped no-one's notice that the IRA's funding, and thence their will to fight, dried up around about 12th September 2001.

This is waffle. The current peace process was well-underway, long before Sept 11th. That event may have added a fresh perspective, but I doubt it changed anything significantly wrt Northern Ireland. The IRA, unfortunately, still have significant support and funds.

Centuries of mistreatment and propaganda have turned Ulster into a ghetto run by quasi-religious, gun-toting militia. The problem now is how to get rid of them. Nuke them all I say; let Odin sort them out.

Urg no. Give the province back to Ireland. We care more about Paisley et al than you mainland brits do anyway. (I do hope one day to see Paisley in Dail Eireinn, even if it's only Ian Paisley, Jr. Preferably as a TD.)

1. I say Brits, not english, cause good proportion of those responsible were Anglo-Irish land-owners, British seems more accurate than English.

As a (strongly pro-peace-process) Dubliner, I find that ignorance disappointing -- one of those bombs nearly killed my father-in-law.

Mind you, I agree with you on most of the rest of your comments ;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/m ay/17/newsid_4311000/4311459.stm

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/dublin/dead.htm

> Actually if you ask any mainland Brit about Northern Ireland, most would say, give them their independence. Let them fight it out.

I think you have a different value of "any" to me. Those I know with that attitude are woefully ignorant of the history of my country and it's unwelcome place in British colonialism.

And, before you lump me in with the cake eaters, I am a regular visitor to NI and Eire

There's some good statistics on the UK's conflict with the IRA here. In all, more than 3500 were killed by military and paramilitary groups between 1969 and 2001. The peak death toll was in 1972, with 479 killed--that's about three Oklahoma City bombings (168 deaths in that incident). In six consecutive years (1971 to 1976) there were more deaths due to terrorism than were killed in Oklahoma city; four additional years had terrorism-related death tolls above a hundred. Between 1969 and 2001 there were no years in which there were no IRA-related deaths in the UK.

Two members of Parliament and two British Ambassadors have been killed by the IRA, and in 1984 there was a bombing attempt directed at the Prime Minister and her cabinet.

There is evidence that the IRA received funding, weapons, and other support from Libya and from the PLO at times in its history.

That's three decades of terrorism, with hundreds of people killed in some of those years. Tens of thousands of people injured, above and beyond the thousands of deaths I've listed here. Targeted bombings of politicians and judges. Yeah, it's different from what the States experienced--but I wouldn't be so quick to say one or the other was 'less disturbing'.

How many terrorist attacks did the United States have in 2003? In 2004? The British had bombings--multiple bombings--each year, every year, for decades.

Actually citizens of the UK (in the six counties of north Ireland) have been living in such a state since 1922. It's called the Special Powers Act.

I grew up in Northern Ireland. In 1971 the UK governement decided that it could defeat terrorist by using internment. What happened was that the goverment identified who they thought would be likely IRA terrorists. There was no actual evidence involved, just people that the government didn't like. Snatch squads were sent out and people were taken and imprisoned without trial.

This is no different to what the US goverment is doing now.

The one thing that came out of internment in Northern Ireland was that it actually promoted support for the very terrorist organisation it was designed to crush.

Mm. I'm liking the sound of this "kiosk mode" that can disallow users of a public terminal to change settings. You wouldn't believe how often I hear someone in the university library complain that their browser has no "back" button because someone's gone and switched it off. Twelve million pounds (almost $20million) on a new library full of free-use machines, and they're all running Win98 *cringe*

KDE still can't get the Desktop menu right, though. *grins*

While I really hate some of the exaggeration that gets played up in the US media (comparing the WTC disaster to Hiroshima, for example), what's the largest loss of life that an IRA attack has ever caused? 29, right? ("Real IRA" car bomb in 1998)

Have one hundred incidents that bad and then tell me that the UK has had comparable experience.

2,711 deaths in Northern Ireland up to 1988, versus recent figures of under 3,000 for the WTC. Close enough, I think?

Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) ('B-Specials')

The USC, or 'Specials', were originally formed in 1920 by the British Administration in Ireland. The force was an auxiliary paramilitary force made up of three units, 'A', 'B', and 'C'. The 'A-Specials' were full-time and were housed in barracks, the 'B-Specials' were part-time and were used on patrols and check-points, and the 'C-Specials' did not perform any regular duties but held arms and could be mobilised in the case of an emergency. The 'A' and 'C' Specials were disbanded in 1925 but the 'B-Specials' were retained and were used during Irish Republican Army (IRA) campaigns in Northern Ireland. The 'B-Specials' were an entirely Protestant force and were viewed with distrust and fear by Catholics in Northern Ireland. In 1969 the 'B-Specials' were deployed in a number of areas. The 'B-Specials' were responsible for shooting dead a Catholic civilian on 14 August 1969. The Hunt Report recommended the replacement of the 'B-Specials' with a locally recruited regiment of the British Army and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) became operational on 1 April 1970.

Your post has made me curious, so I have been reading about the Birmingham Six on various websites. (one of the most detailed is http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/o ther/1974/faul76.htm) It doesn't seem as though the men were implicated by the cards. On the contrary, the account says that both the men and their playing cards were clean. Rather, it seems that the police picked them up for being Irish in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then beat them into confession.