Subject | Re: Republicanism still an offence in England? (wasRe: Queen mother (of |
From | Russ |
Date | 2002-04-17 19:15 (2002-04-17 19:15) |
Message-ID | <20020417131540.06878.00000609@mb-ch.aol.com> |
Client | |
Newsgroups | alt.fan.tolkien |
Follows | paulh |
Followups | paulh (16m) > Russ Tamim (2h & 23m) > Russ |
paulhA common definition of terrorism I've seen around here is deadly violence purposefully directed against and intended to kill civilians.
On 17 Apr 2002 15:48:58 GMT, mcresq@aol.com (Russ) wrote:Actually, my rough figures very much overstated the IRA's imact oncivilians.Here are the actual figures from the CAIN website:were
A total of 1706 deaths are attributed to the IRA. Of that 1011 (or 60%)British Security; 516 (or 30%) were civilians; 7 were Irish security; 32wereLoyalist paramilitary; and 140 were Republican paramilitary (their own and others).paramilitaries,
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 Loyalistthere were much mroe discriminating that British security services.other
Quite frankly, IMO a force for which overall 70% of it's 'victims' werecombatants 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..
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.