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Re: MSR and Ojay, you're on...

John Savard
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SubjectRe: MSR and Ojay, you're on notice...[was Re: The British Secret Service...[was Re: Republicanism st
FromJohn Savard
Date2002-04-30 13:08 (2002-04-30 13:08)
Message-ID<3185f2b9.4663042@news.ed.shawcable.net>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien
FollowsMichael O'Neill
FollowupsChief General Bagronk (2h & 34m)
Michael O'Neill (11h & 13m) > John Savard
On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 02:26:34 +0100, Michael O'Neill <onq@indigo.ie> wrote, in part:

Michael O'Neill
Secondly, don't assume that violence is always wrong. That kind of comment is best kept in second year civics and religion class. Without violence, none of your much vaunted Royals would have kept power for more than a few years. Arguably that *is* wrong, but violent action is needed sometimes to defend the person, the family and the country. Context.

What irks me about your position is that you appear to assume that violence committed by a King or head of state or Government is somehow legitimate in and of itself. It isn't. Ask Henry Kissinger about the innocent civilians killed in Cambodia and Laos. Ask the CIA about San Salvador. Drugs. Dirty money. Dirty hands. They didn't even have the excuse that they were fighting a political regime practising apartheid against their kith and kin, which the fledgling IRA *did*.

I see the Irish situation rather simply.

The IRA used violence directly against innocent civilians in an effort to effect a political change. They did it in a time when the Irish in Northern Ireland were not being subjected to anything comparable to the terrible historical injustices of Ireland's past. They were aiming at replacing the existing political system with a Marxist dictatorship.

Thus, there is not the _slightest_ justification or mitigation for their violent acts.

Since Britain is a democratic nation, the IRA violence meant that Protestant civilians - and Catholic civilians who didn't toe the IRA line, which is to my mind the definitive proof the IRA were terrorists and not freedom fighters - died, but life was safe for Catholic civilians.

That the murders committed by the UDA came from the frustration that engendered is hardly surprising. Murders they still were, but one could think of the Allied bombing of Dresden as a comparison of sorts.

I found it regrettable that Britain found itself unable to simply liquidate the IRA and instead an agreement involving an amnesty for murders was reached.

The difference between creating a climate of violence, and acting violently within one, is immense. And yet murder is still murder: those in the UDA who killed, or conspired in the killing, of innocent Catholics still deserve death, and so they can't really be given lighter treatment as a result; but if only they were brought to justice, it would be a greater injustice than if it were the other way around.

John Savard http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

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Chief General Bagronk (2h & 34m)
Michael O'Neill (11h & 13m) > John Savard