Skip to main content
news

Re: Republicanism still an ...

Russ
SubjectRe: Republicanism still an offence in England? (wasRe: Queen mother (of
FromRuss
Date2002-04-17 19:15 (2002-04-17 19:15)
Message-ID<20020417131540.06878.00000609@mb-ch.aol.com>
Client
Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
Followspaulh
Followupspaulh (16m) > Russ
Tamim (2h & 23m) > Russ

In article <e98rbucq4mthqb0qag38r7nos46i4d1g8r@4ax.com>, paulh <paulh@fahncahn.com>writes:

paulh
On 17 Apr 2002 15:48:58 GMT, mcresq@aol.com (Russ) wrote:

Actually, my rough figures very much overstated the IRA's imact on

civilians.

Here are the actual figures from the CAIN website:

A total of 1706 deaths are attributed to the IRA. Of that 1011 (or 60%)

were

British Security; 516 (or 30%) were civilians; 7 were Irish security; 32

were

Loyalist paramilitary; and 140 were Republican paramilitary (their own and others).

Let's compare the IRA's record with other groupings:

British Security (i.e. RUC, British Army, UDR, etc.) are credited with 363 death of which 192 (or 53%) were civilians.

And Loyalist paramilitaries are credited with 991 death of which 864 (a whopping 87% were civilians).

Not only was the IRA much more discriminating than the Loyalist

paramilitaries,

there were much mroe discriminating that British security services.

Quite frankly, IMO a force for which overall 70% of it's 'victims' were

other

combatants cannot be termed a terrorist force.

What utter rubbish. Can you show me anywhere credible, other than in your opinion, where terrorist forces are defined as those which only kill X% or more of 'civilians' vs combatants..

A common definition of terrorism I've seen around here is deadly violence purposefully directed against and intended to kill civilians.

Since neither you nor I can read people's minds, a perfectly valid method for looking at the question is to look at the *results* of their actions. The *fact* that 70% of those killed by the IRA were other combatants and 30% were civilians is pretty stong evidence that the IRA were not targeting and killing civilians as a modus operandi.

And I will state again (lest you make a false accusation), this is a different issue than the question whether an organization has committed individual terrorist acts. The IRA did. So did the British Army. And it's also a different issue from the question over whether violence is justifed at all (related to a 'just war' inquiry).

SO what ratio needs to be aspired to for THIS then? Perhaps if the Loyalist Paramilitaries kill more 'combatants' then you'll be happy to take them off the list of 'Terrorists'..

Were the loyalists to change their methods and target combatants then it could be argued they were *no longer* terrorists, but it would not change the fact that they were terrorists during the time their methods targeted civilians.

What a pathetic excuse to justify terrorism..

That's rich coming from someone who justifies homocide bombers.

Amazing turn around from a few days ago (when the Palestinians were Terrorists and the Israelis were Angels of Mercy)

I'm sorry if the facts are getting in the way of your opinion, but facts are facts and the numbers are the numbers. If you want to argue that the numbers should be interpreted in a different way, then be my guest.

Russ

paulh (16m) > Russ
Tamim (2h & 23m) > Russ