Angry Muslims

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Tequila, you are reading between the lines here. I didn't specifically defend THOSE cartoons, what i said was that not all illustrations coming from the middle east are all anti-semetic.

THOSE cartoons are clearly anti semitic, I don't dispute that. Then, thats not really my point.

What we're getting into again is the murky ground of tarring all criticism of Israel as anti-semetic, which is unhelpful because not only does it serve to put Israel beyond reproach for it's war crimes it creates a precedence for Israel to commit more murders.
"Look at these anti -semetic racist monsters, send in more troops"



Perhaps if Israel stopped its onslaught against Palestinian civillians and brought back settlers from territories that are clearly in Palestinian land (and actually enforce it) then maybe Hamas and Islamic Jihad would stop launching rockets and sending suicide bombers into jewish territory. Thats before you even get into the issue of unequal access to utilities, water and arable earth.

How did the Gaza beach blast, the Jenin massacre or the Sabra and Shatila massacres help to protect Israelis from terrorism?

In regards to Northern Ireland, Tequila may not be aware but it was once the policy of the Northern Ireland government to have 'one house one vote'

They did this knowing full well that catholic families tended to be far larger, and with a smaller count of the vote than by right the Unionists were able to enforce their mandate, undemocratically.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUcxNqBvcjU[/youtube] There is also Islamic unrest going on in western China. Alot of tension between the Uyghers and the Han.

I'm sure for the western powers its more of a popcorn moment. 2 of its ideological enemies attacking each other.

Your knowledge of the constitutional situation of Northern Ireland is really non-existent.

Northern Ireland wasn't "invaded" by Britain in 1969. The British Army sent troops to a part of the UK, to protect Catholics from sectarian attacks on them by loyalists. They were warmly welcomed at first but due to the Army's heavy-handedness the relationship turned bad.

Northern Ireland is made up of six of the nine counties of Ulster, yes? Anyway, Ireland was part of the UK in 1800 and in 1921-1922, after World War I and the War of Irish Independence, the Unionists saw to it by sheer force of will and arms that partition was implemented. It wasn't considered a brilliant solution - Unionists wanted all of Ireland to remain in the UK, Nationalists wanted an all-Ireland state. Anyway, partition came about and Northern Ireland remained part of the UK, although it very briefly left the UK (for two days) around the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

England (and later Great Britain and then the two UK's) has had a direct presence on the island of Ireland for 850 years under various forms. It probably always will have. A lot of it, especially in centuries gone by, was brutal and incompetent and, yes, although it was officially a part of the UK Ireland was treated more like a colony for a lot of British rule up until relatively recently.



Perhaps it was because they realised that they weren't getting anywhere? And that loyalist murderers were becoming more and more savagely, murderously bloody? And that they might have been sick of it all underneath? And that it wasn't in the best interest of the Irish people of any persuasion?

Your politicians did what was best for the people of Northern Ireland. It's not a normal society, but they wanted to call an end to needless suffering as that's all it was - no side was ever going to win.

You're as bad as the people who yearn for the days of Brookeborough.

Do you think ordinary people want to die over a political disagreement? The entire idea of the GFA is that both communities' wishes are respected. You seem to just want to respect your own. Sorry, kid, doesn't work like that.

Communal violence feeds off each other - if you want to kill people from the Protestant/Unionist community or police/Army targets, they will get angry retaliate. And then it all starts up again and it gets more and more savage. It's a cycle of violence - "look at what those IRA/Brit scum did to us, we'll show 'em!" - and so it carries on.

The more likely you take to violence, the less people are going to want to be part of a UI. If there is to be a UI, it'll have a lot of concessions to the Protestant minority and there will be a considerable British presence/influence in symbols, holidays, and so on. It won't be a simple annexation.



Apart from the admitted discrimination (which wasn't right but equally wasn't worth killing people over) that happened up until the early 1970s, your assertion doesn't hold water. The Troubles went on for another 25 years, long after the discriminatory system at Stormont was swept away. In fact, I think it would probably be more apposite to posit the idea that the state is less likely to be amenable to your cause when you're murdering people and trying to take it down.

As I said, if the entire stated reason for the Republican campaign was civil rights for Catholics within the NI state (which we both know it bloody well wasn't), any major reason for it existing was gone by the mid-1970s. Internment (a stupid and counter-productive policy) was abandoned and so on. Yes, there were other issues going on but that was largely because of the Troubles at the time. If the Republicans had laid down their arms earlier, a lot of pain on all sides could have been averted.

Can I ask you something? As an Irishman, what rights are you denied to you that Unionists and British people don't get? There really aren't that many. You have Irish passports (which you've always had), can travel across the border freely, can be freely involved in Irish cultural activities (a lot funded by the UK government) and so on. There's equal rights there now. A ton of money is poured into Northern Ireland - there's a lot to see and do there, it's a wonderful place.

The border is really the last argument. And most people in NI (many Catholics and almost all Protestants) seem happy with the way things are and just want to get on with their lives.

Lord Carson and Terence O'Neill were right - if the Catholic population had been treated better and fairer from the very beginning, I daresay history would have turned out a lot differently.



They did, yes. Gerry Fitt, the lead man in NICRA, was a Protestant nationalist.



No, they didn't. The IRA butchered, murdered and maimed people - innocent bystanders, ordinary men, pregnant women, children - for 30 years. They kept that hate and the violence going. The only thing the IRA did in the end was to give up its war against the Northern Irish state. The Republican paramilitaries between them murdered about 2,000 people over the period.

The IRA was the main people stopping you get your rights. It's the same as the nonsense claim that Loyalists "defended Ulster's Protestant community".



The Poppy Day Massacre? That brave and courageous attack where the Provos murdered people paying their respects to their war dead in Enniskillen?

Did you ever watch that BBC NI documentary on Bloody Friday? None of the SF/IRA people went on to the programme to justify what they had done. The programme features interviews with relatives and people caught up in the massacre, as well as police and fire representatives from that day.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s1iH3z8EhY[/youtube]

If you watch the documentary, the IRA put bombs in places all across Belfast city centre on a busy Friday afternoon. Who do you think will be in Belfast city on a busy Friday afternoon? The bastions of the Imperialist British overlords? Or couples and women with children and locals out shopping and going about their business? These are the people who ended up being maimed and injured. Just ordinary everyday Irishmen trying to get on with their lives as best as you can.

The telephone warnings, such as they were, were such that they could never be properly implemented. There were so many bombs in Belfast City Centre that, in trying to get people away from the danger of one bomb, walked right into another. That's how many there were - you should know yourself how small the centre of Belfast is.

If you leave a lot of bombs in a very small place and only give incomplete information (and even hoax warnings, as was the case on Bloody Friday) on a very short timescale, it's going to be near impossible to get people away from danger fast enough. How are people supposed to know what is a bomb and what isn't? The police and the Army aren't devised of mystical powers, you know - they're ordinary people whose job it was to protect the public. The police and the Army did the best they could but the warnings were useless and were almost certainly designed to be so.

Decades later, the IRA "apologised" for the casualties on that day. I'm sure their wee hearts bled for their victims.

It's also worth noting that one of the main instigators of Bloody Friday, Seán Mac Stíofáin, was born and brought up in England and was actually half-Irish and half-English.



You're repeating lies that have long ago been shown to be untrue. Even republicans there at the time admit that those claims were total lies.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/senior-republicans-shame-at-bloody-friday-16187582.html



Some police officers did, and elements of Special Branch did - for a variety of reasons. Some UDR members ended up being sectarian murderers. Doesn't mean to say that the entire organisation is corrupt.

I'm sure collusion worked the other way as well, with republican terrorists receiving information from official sources on the QT.



This is true. Loyalist paramilitaries mostly murdered civilians in their attacks. 841 out of 1016 people were civilians. Now, we don't know whether all of these truly were civilians or IRA members, but the statistics speak for themselves. The Republican paramilitaries murdered a huge amount of civilians, and also people who would have been easy targets like off duty police and off duty/ex-army types.

My point is that both groups caused a tremendous amount of avoidable pain and suffering.



Some members who were in the RUC and UDR had access to these things, because they were also paramilitaries. Some people in the RUC and UDR, probably for personal reasons (say if a close friend may have been killed), gave information to loyalist paramilitaries or not. It's disgraceful but people are human. A lot of RUC types hated loyalists with a passion and did everything they could to bring 'em to book.



Why did they kill them? Do you want to give me their names? Given your background, I'm not exactly comfortable that it was in cold blood and for no reason.



Can you pin any more on the British Army? What happened in Derry was an absolute disgrace, I'm not disputing that in any way at all. But these were isolated incidents by a Parachute Regiment that was off their heads. Their deployment was unwise at best.

There's another one that you've forgotten - Ballymurphy which was around the same time. But, by and large, the Army didn't by and large go round massacring civilians. The IRA and Loyalists did this right up to the ceasefire, and some Republican elements are still doing this.



Idoit?

I've been to Northern Ireland a fair few times. I know that there are always the element of people who can't/won't move on, the republicans who are still trying to attack the police. They exist on the loyalist side too. Most people, however, have moved on. Making bomb threats and killing Catholic police officers won't change a thing any more. The bomb threats have become an everyday nuisance to people there and the killings and attempted killings of regular police officers just garner utter antipathy from the general public to the people and groups carrying out these murders. (The problem that SF have is that their position looks immensely hypocritical to observers - why was killing coppers alright when it was 20 years ago and isn't now?)



You mean a***holes with nothing else going on in their lives making everyone else's life a nuisance and misery.

I'm glad that the police and security services clamp down on terrorism. They could do to be a bit firmer IMV, especially with the likes of yobs rioting. Get evidence and bang the wee scrotes up.



Proof? Or is it the same claims from ill-educated dissident republicans and their supporters? And why should anyone take anything they say seriously? You wouldn't expect most people to take the butthurt of other criminal groups seriously. These people just spread hate and violence.

It's amazing how easily the vast majority of people in NI - Catholic and Protestant, Unionist, Nationalist and none at all, even immigrants - can get by without being battered.



Go on. No evidence and we've only got your word for it? And you come across as though you support dissident republicanism?



Wasn't some well-known trouble spot like Creggan/Rosemount in Derry or the Ardoyne in north Belfast was it?



So you'd rather that a suspicious item was left potentially to detonate, would you?

They were trying to keep you lot safe. Who put the bins there? Dissident republicans are very well-known to put bombs in bins and the like. See the attacks (and attempted attacks) in Newry and Lurgan?

Dissident republican attacks are usually carried out in nationalist areas. If the Army had ignored it and it had blown up, you and the like would be blaming the Army.

Listen, I haven't got the time to sit here debating with you all day, I have things to do and TBH I have limited energy at the moment.

No, Ireland was invaded by England around the year 1300.

That incident in 1972 is a funny looking form of 'protection' to me. British troops had been heard bragging the previous night about how they were going to ''kill some fenian bastards''

Anyway, since i spent most of my childhood in West Belfast during the peak of the troubles I can confirm what cowardly bastards the british army was, even from a protestant perspective. They would deliberately start their footpatrols outside protestant schools at 3pm everyday, because they knew the kids were getting out around that time. They were using us as human sheilds.


The reason the IRA bombed the centre of Belfast was to hit the centre of trade and commerce. It doesn't take a genius of guerilla warfare to understand that a good way to hit your enemy is in his pocket. I'm not saying that justifies the IRA's actions just that it wasn't as simple as wanton violence and murder on the part of the IRA.



Absolute nonsense. The IRA were'nt in the business of leaving explosives in Nationalist areas.

The RUC and army on the other hand, had a track record of unsubstantiated and arbitrary harrassment of Nationalist homes.

Of the bombs that detonated during the course of the troubles you could probably count the number of loyalist bombings on one hand. It wasn't within their intelligence for the most part

Yes, vigilante shootings against drug dealers and shootings of 'touts' or police informers.

The exact same activities happen in loyalist areas so the point is moot. The difference is, a lot of the loyalist infrastructure has been operating under more or less the same capacity as it was during the troubles era. Theres been little onus put on them to 'decommission'.

In my opinion, such episodes could have far reaching consequences. If groups like Al Qaeda and Lashkar-E-Taiba make China their new hunting grounds, it could seriously affect the political influence of Islam worldwide. Having already pissed of the US, India and - to some extent - Russia, Islam getting in bad standing within China could potentially create a global alliance against the entire religion (and in the tolerant ethos of International Politics, not just radical Islam alone).

Communists, like radical Muslim regimes, like to execute people for their own amusement. So I don't think radical Islam is a threat to China.

I never said radical Islam was a threat to China.

China, on the other hand, could be a serious threat to Islam.

However, China hasn't been a communist state for some time...

Also China is primarily an Athiest state.

Hardly... China isnt particulary interested in conflict with its immediate neighbours let alone the most prominent islamic countries.

China only gets is feathers ruffled whenever there is something happening within its borders. Or at least, what it percieves to be its borders.

That was actually my point, in the first place. There is a large Uyghur presence in the Xinjiang region (which - unlike China as a whole - has a majority Muslim population). And there has been some unrest with the Uyghur in China. If this turns into a political dispute, it might have a significant influence on the Chinese view on Islam. This, given that China is an international heavyweight, might have broader implications...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J992ciIxBBY[/youtube]Chinas already working on anti terrorism excercises.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cUc8ZjPNMI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_m3qYkb2-w&feature=fvwrel[/youtube]Terrorists are ruthless but man I swear the Chinese can be even more ruthless to the terrorists.

I never said it would be pretty (or civilized).

I never would expect it to be either. Normally the Chinese *despite a communist regime* are a peaceful and civilized people but if you pose a threat or if they feel something is a potential threat watch out. Otherwise they are friendly people unfortunately most of the West don't see them as friendly unless they hang out with them long enough they are just looking out for what is best for the people and sometimes if brute force is needed they will use it in order to bring peace back within its nation. I do respect the Chinese even though they have a communist government *more likely becoming socialist due to rapid changes* they are very kind people as long as you do not provoke or threaten them they just want peace.