Mike Scott Rohan
The message <3CC9F470.FC7A3F96@indigo.ie> from Michael O'Neill <onq@indigo.ie>contains these words:

Michael O'Neill
Mike Scott Rohan wrote:

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Mike Scott Rohan
I don't recall using all the above terms of you, and probably some stem from other people; but I wouldn't call them unfair. You have agreed with and defended the actions of IRA terrorists and the deliberate and calculated murder of innocent civilians, while claiming a Christian identity. That's contemptible, and you have earned worse names than those. I don't hear any chorus of ridicule, as it happens; but if it came from your kind it would hardly worry me.

Michael O'Neill
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So you think violence and Christianity are incompatible, do you?

How Christian do you want to get Mike?

Mike Scott Rohan
None of what you said is relevant to the point. Everyone knows there has been violence in the name of Christianity down the centuries, some of it sectarian, and those who committed it were not as such Christians, whatever they professed. I was disputing whether this particular poster was justified in complaining about anti-Catholic bias, invoking a Christian identity, while defending terrorist violence. If he does that, he is many things, but certainly not a Christian.

Michael O'Neill
So you see, *real* Christians know all about the propensity for violence in mankind and the consequences Christ's role in the world. And what divides Northern Ireland. Sectarian divisions.

Which is why of course there's a peace process. And of course, every right thinking Irishman or Briton of whatever persuasion should give credit to the main architects of that peace and support them.

The politicians, in no particular order.

David Trimble John Hume Gerry Adams John Major Bertie Ahern Albert Reynolds Tony Blair John Reid

et al.

And not forgetting the one paramilitary group who have declared a formal ceasefire.

The Irish Republican Army.

Despite provocation from Trimble's party, with their challenges to Reid's judgement calls being thrown out of the Courts.

Despite the antics of the Red Hand Commandos and their ilk - the ones who place children's lives at risk or kill them [remember the three Quinn boys?].

Despite the undermining of their stance by dissident Republicans who cannot live and let live [remember the Omagh atrocity?].

Despite the Patton Report [itself a relatively mild document] not being fully implemented by the British Government.

Despite ongoing subterfuge and bad faith in those running the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the British Secret Service [Remember the Castlereagh break-in?]

So to go on the record and put you and Ojay in your respective boxes once and for all,

I *do* support the IRA ceasefire and the actions of politicians worldwide who support their position.

I *don't* support the killing of civilians, whatever the justification, whoever does it.

I *don't* support the public abuse and villifcation of children, of whatever persuasion, by whoever does it, for whatever reason.

I trust that makes my position clear.

Mike Scott Rohan
It does indeed. Your entire series of examples is nationalist,

ignoring any alternative or objective point of view, and evidence which might bring yours into question -- the whole Colombia business, for example, or the hit-list including some of those politicians you mention as deserving support.

Furthermore, in one example, you uncritically and unquestioningly accept one particular version of events -- that the Secret Service and possibly the police were responsible for the Castlereagh break-in.

Yet the investigation of that has not been completed yet, and the evidence and full circumstances are not yet public. It isn't at all certain who is responsible, and it could at least as well have been the IRA or those dissidents who keep doing things they used to do; we simply don't know yet.

Certainly they could both benefit very directly from it.

The allegation that it was the Secret Service etc. arose from largely nationalist sources, IRA/Sinn Fein representatives included, very quickly after the event -- some might think suspiciously, as an attempt at explaining it away.

You cite it not only as a fact, but as conclusive evidence of British bad faith. You can be doing this not on the basis of established fact, therefore, but of implicit belief. An objective observer might well decide that you display bias on that alone, never mind the rest.

I'm delighted to hear you don't support the killing of civilians. I accept that you mean that; but the question then becomes what exactly you mean by "don't support"?

Let me ask you a question, therefore -- given the large number of civilian deaths caused by the IRA, including children, would you then demand -- not just approve of, demand and fight for -- the handover to justice and consequent punishment of those IRA men responsible? A simple yes or no.

Just that, mind you -- not "if UDA murderers are too", or anything like that; because murder is too grave to be punished only on a tit-for-tat basis, isn't it?

It would be a very good thing if the UDA killers were punished, I agree; but if no IRA killers were ever punished I would still agree.

And I would happily hand the UDA killers over to Eire's justice system, despite its unpleasant record of bias. They're terrorists, they deserve nothing better.

Now, tell us that you would do the same with the IRA killers to British justice, please -- again, a simple yes or no. Tell us that if you knew who they were, you would inform against them -- yes or no?

Michael O'Neill
Now you post any libellous allegations against *me* without proof Mike and I'll see you in Court. And that goes for the Scandinavian with the killfile as well.

Mike Scott Rohan
I'm afraid that, whether you realize it or not, your entire post above would not exactly support your own case. If there is to be a peace process, a lot of old attitudes have to be jettisoned on both sides, and I see little sign of that in the IRA/Sinn Fein and their supporters -- nor in the Protestant terrorists and theirs, of course, but then I don't accept their version of history either.

That, despite the extraordinarily vicious and often directly libellous abuse that's been thrown at me here already.

Neither, I know, do Oje or the other people who have critized the terrorist stance here, and been abused for it.

Your threat of legal action, Michael, is intended to make us knuckle under to that abuse; but to me that threat smacks of insecurity, as if you are finding your own position increasingly difficult to defend -- as if you are aware how vulnerable you are to the same accusations you so readily throw at other people.