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

Mike Scott Rohan
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SubjectRe: MSR and Ojay, you're on notice...[was Re: The British Secret Service...[was Re: Republicanism st
FromMike Scott Rohan
Date2002-05-01 16:02 (2002-05-01 15:02)
Message-ID<2002050115023271187@asgard.zetnet.co.uk>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
FollowsMichael O'Neill
FollowupsMichael O'Neill (5h & 42m) > Mike Scott Rohan
Russ (13h & 35m)
The message <3CCDF2CA.2333D1B4@indigo.ie> from Michael O'Neill <onq@indigo.ie>contains these words:

{snip}

Michael O'Neill
And its been pointed out to you before Mike that as a royalist you don't have a moral position to defend.

It has not been pointed out; only established facts can be pointed out. In any case, what, in this context, is a "royalist", aside from a term of abuse meant to sound like "loyalist"? It's meaningless. I defend the law and order imposed by a democratically elected government to defend its free citizens; that's a very strong moral position. The more so, when the defence is against murderous and indiscriminate violence used by groups of self-appointed fanatics to achieve ideological ends by non-democratic means. You justify it by the defence of "civil rights" against "apartheid", but that is to shelter it behind emotive terms borrowed from a very different situation. And not even the struggle against apartheid justified the killing of unconcerned civilians. You claim it did, by applying it here, and you must admit that if that does not make you a terrorist supporter, it goes a very long way towards it. Of course law and order is imposed with violence at times, and that violence is never entirely right, and by its very nature may sometimes result in injustice; but terrorist violence always results in injustice, because that was its original intention. That is its sole purpose, apart from the gratification of hatred -- which often runs in tandem. I notice, incidentally, that you select your examples of governmental injustice solely from one political spectrum and from ancient 60s bugbears; that suggests, to say the least, a set pattern of thinking, when we have examples like Zimbabwe or Burma today.

However, all this is old ground, gone over at wearisome length, and here it distracts from the original point, which you still don't seem to understand -- that if one adopts any kind of terrorist ideology, one cannot then take on the mantle of Christianity.

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

Michael O'Neill
Well, IF YOU BOTHER TO READ MY DAMNED POST MIKE it isn't...

I called it against the dissident fuckwits still lingering in their "four green fields", the ones who bombed Omagh. That makes your "entire" comment ludicrous. And since it is *those* republicans who aren't playing "ceasefire" this week or indeed *any* week, my call was very relevant. How telling that you ignored it OR DIDN'T SEE IT!

No, I included it because I have trouble accepting it -- at least as much as you have on other issues. There is considerable doubt -- whether justified or not -- that the "dissidents" are as independent as they appear, or indeed independent at all, and not just a convenient division of the IRA to permit terrorism to continue under the mantle of peace-making. The IRA knows who the Omagh culprits are and could either denounce them to the authorities -- which after all includes themselves, now -- or deal with them by their traditional means, in which they have never hesitated to deal with dissent before. But they don't do either. Which leaves considerable doubt as to whether it's a ploy. And you cited no other less dubious examples, though there are any number.

<sheesh! why do I bother...>

I ask myself the same question.

Mike Scott Rohan
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.

Michael O'Neill
Accept it? I promoted it. You'd have to be a complete and utter idiot to fall for the PSNI version. Come ON Mike!

But unlike you, I haven't fallen for any version, not yet. My point is not that either or any is correct, but that you have already made your mind up, so firmly that you cite it as evidence. You have done that before you could possibly have enough information to do it; and that is evdience that you are ready to do so with such issues. None of your barrage of sites, irrelevant quotations on other issues, allegations about NI justice and so one does more than obscure that point, never mind answer it. To decide on this so soon and so thoroughly is bias.

{snip}

Mike Scott Rohan
Certainly they could both benefit very directly from it.

Michael O'Neill
Not as much as the PSNI chiefs and British Spooks who wanted their tracks *buried*, not merely "covered".

So you say. An independent observer would not necessarily agree. But the point is that you have already decided.

Mike Scott Rohan
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.

Michael O'Neill
<boggle>

Cogent argument? Amazing. However as cited above, British bad faith in the matter or Republicanism is already widely reported - G4 & B6.

Funnily enough, each new instance of British bad faith, was in its day treated exactly the same incredulous way you are treating this one, while those of us with good instincts just move on to the next suspicious occurrance, highlighting the next one while the proof gathers on this one.

Do you think anyone in the South is surprised by the revelations from the Bloody Sunday Inquiry? Nope. Did they have *proof* before the evidence was given? Nope. What are we then, a race of Celtic Psychics?

There are no revelations from the BS enquiry. Unless you count the admission that Martin McGuinness was out there with a gun, and perhaps others. Otherwise there have only been allegations of the kind there have been for years, and the enquiry has not in any way validated these, merely given them a judicial platform. A good half of the testimony is yet to come, and the conclusions after that, which will establish to what extent testimony can be accepted as reliable evidence. So once again, aren't you being wildly premature in invoking it on your side? Effectively you're delivering sentence halfway through a trial. Once again, that is an operation of bias.

Must be, ehhhhhhh?

My basic analysis is very straightforward. One question - who benefits most? High profile retiring police chiefs already embarrassed by the O'Loan inquiry and low profile Spooks not wanting their cover blown...... or the IRA, for ...what reason?

By acquiring a list of informers who have reported on its operations. That's a much less contorted and direct benefit.

Mike Scott Rohan
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"?

Michael O'Neill
Clarification. Taken in context [Norn Iron conflict], I don't support killing civilians.

But if someone was to attack me or mine and left me *no* other choice, I believe I could kill to defend myself or my family. Mind you, that's a pretty big *no*...

Mike Scott Rohan
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.

Michael O'Neill
Yes *and* no.

Personally I believe they should be punished. Particularly the bastards who committed Omagh. You cannot imagine the revulsion Irish people feel at this atrocity being carried out in their name. I also believe the British Spooks who gave information leading to the murders by loyalist death squads of the three Quinn children and two solicitors should be punished. And I believe the soldiers who committed the BLoody Sunday Massacre should be punished. However I don't think their arrest and conviction would be very productive Mike.

I hate time wasters, and with the Good Friday Agreement currently in place, they would just go through a revolving door and the whole thing would be a complete waste of time. But it would be nice for the credibility of the Garda? and the PSNI if nothing else to see the people responsible brought to justice.

You are introducing rather too much tit-for-tat, but fair enough. There is no evidence "British Spooks" were involved in the murder of the Quinn Children or the solicitors, but if there were I would also support their trial. The question of soldiers is rather different, and depends on the situation, but I will agree to let that one rest; certainly a soldier guilty of deliberate murder beyond the compass of his duty would be no better than the rest.

Mike Scott Rohan
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?

Michael O'Neill
Absolutely. Everyone goes to prison. MI5, CI5 agents, senior police constables, Red Hand Commandos, Real IRA members, IRa members - the lot. Equality before the Law.

Agreed. If there are any such agents involved in the murder of civilians; assuming there are is a separate question. The killing of terrorists engaged upon terror operations is different -- but don't launch into an argument on that, because it usually comes down to whether a particular event was a terror operation or not, not an argument on the actual principle. These are grey areas, but there are some that are damn near pure black and white -- the civilians blown up by bombs too numerous to list, but typically Enniskillen, Birmingham and Omagh, the children killed or maimed in the Warrington shopping streets (by bombs specifically timed to catch civilians, in a place with no military relevance) -- and, yes, the Quinn children and similar cases just as much.

You say that, and we can agree. But that is only part of the question.

{snip}

Mike Scott Rohan
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.

Michael O'Neill
Nope. Forget it. No-one's asking that they serve their time here. I doubt they'd survive a year in prison here. Prisoners have rights too and the primary one is the right to life. Plus if there's to be any hope of reform leading to rehabilitation and perhaps eventual reconciliation, prisoners need the support of their loved ones at the sam e time as they can see their families growing up without them.

I think they would survive as well as IRA prisoners have survived in Northern jails; I don't have statistics, but I don't recall losing any at all, except a couple of the hunger strikers, which is a different matter. Otherwise they have been well enough treated and their lives guarded, and I have no reason to doubt Eire could do the same. But I think that the prospect of being in jail a long way from their spheres of influence would be a hell of a deterrent. That might contribute to their rehabilitation, too, especially if it might earn them a return to home jails.

[you seem very revenge driven Mike - a primary terrorist motivation I might add]

Applying a legal penalty can sometimes look like revenge, or be made to. You should beware of confusing them. One fundamental difference lies in the validity of the authority imposing it; others include the impersonal nature of the penalty -- i.e. within the parameters laid down by pre-existing law, which does not exclude a degree of adjustment to fit the crime; and its general conformity with civilized standards -- which can arguably include execution, but not, for example, breaking on the wheel or tearing with red-hot pincers, etc. All of these safeguards and others exist because the law is democratically made and answerable. Terrorist revenge is not.

Mike Scott Rohan
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
I hold no truck with cold-blooded killers, of whatever persuasion. I have already confirmed that. I also refer you to my previous comment about killing as a last resort in defines of one's self or family.

But that is a very high order of business - a life for a life.

Not a life for an ideal.

Nor a life for a government's collective peace of mind.

BTW I certainly wouldn't inform the British Authorities, not after G4 and B6. I'd inform the Irish Government and the Garda? and let the apparatus of the Republic deal with its citizens. I would support this State as a citizen to the best of my abilities, but in common with many moderate Irish people I have no faith in what have been seen as no more than English show trials where terrorists are concerned.

I asked you if you would inform against terrorists, because this is the crucial question. You can disclaim support for terrorists, raise your hands in polite horror, but the crunch comes when you have to do something about it. And that question you have definitely not answered. You have slid past it in several ways, not least by introducing the question of trust. I specifically ruled that out in order to make the question an easy one; I never even mentioned to whom you might be doing the informing. It's the principle that matters. I can answer the question without hesitation; I would denounce any such terrorist killers I knew of, even though I don't trust the Eire authorities, who have a horrendous record of finagling the release of terrorist suspects, even in the face of the Gardai and the Eire government. Lack of trust cuts both ways, which is why I ruled out the tit-for-tat element; but terrorism is so serious that I would in principle want to rise above it. I can give that answer, so why can't you? If you cannot be absolute about turning in any such suspects you might know of -- which is not to say that you do, of course -- then you are giving their organization and ideology at least a degree of support.

You condemn the indiscriminate killing of civilians that has long been a feature of their campaigns, including in Britain and even other countries. But that condemnation carries a responsibility with it. If you know who commits a crime and don't tell the authorities about it, your condemnation is worth nothing. In fact, under most legal systems you become an accessory to that crime, and certainly you are morally implicated.

Of course there can be many reasons for this -- fear, for example. For denouncing suspects, even if they were soldiers, I would face no reprisals from the government. People denounce soldiers every day, and don't suffer for it in the least. But if you identified, let alone turned in, IRA killers you and your family would be in dire danger. That is one of the many vital differences between democratic government and terrorists. But the fear question and similar qualifications still do not detract from the central point.

When a person shares a majority of political ideals with some terror groups -- a majority need not be all -- and defends them in the same terms they use themselves, or very similar, and with the same interpretations of events, it is not unreasonable to interpret that as support. Certainly there are degrees of support. Someone else, though supporting those ideals, may oppose the terrorist activities by which they are promoted; but if they are not willing to act on that opposition and do something about them, then they still cannot be called neutral. Neutral countries in wartime must carry out certain procedures to validate their own neutrality. Anything less than even-handed opposition has to be support, and that opposition has to be meaningful.

Having wasted this much time on this post, I don't feel it's worth doing so again, because it will just be the usual rehash and no doubt met with the usual vicious and irrelevant abuse. But I will restate what got me into this subject again -- disgust at finding this sort of crap spouted in this group, and surprise that anyone who claims to enjoy LOTR could express it. Tolkien would have loathed both it and the kind of people who promote it, and it has no relevance here. However you yourself may regard it, that remains the case, and nobody has even tried to answer it. Whether the argument is right or wrong, it should go somewhere else, and stay there.

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Michael O'Neill (5h & 42m) > Mike Scott Rohan
Russ (13h & 35m)