Posted on 03/12/2005 6:31:50 PM PST by quidnunc
Sinn Fein has had to call off a series of St Patrick’s Day fundraising events in America this week as pressure on Gerry Adams, the party’s president, spreads across the Atlantic.
The events have been downgraded to speaking engagements after Adams was advised he would not be given permission to raise money in America because the IRA has come under heavy criticism for its involvement in bank robbery, money laundering and murder.
Senior Irish-American senators have now demanded that the terrorist group disband.
The reversal in Sinn Fein’s fortunes is largely due to the unrelenting campaign mounted by the girlfriend and five sisters of Robert McCartney, a Belfast father of two knifed to death by an IRA gang six weeks ago.
Previous tours on the weeks around St Patrick’s Day — which falls on Thursday — have been lucrative for Adams, sometimes raising more than $100,000 (£52,000) from IRA supporters at black-tie events.
The hat may be discreetly passed round to cover expenses at this week’s events, but there will be no entry charge. Some backers may also feel the £26.5m raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast just before Christmas, for which the IRA has been blamed, makes the need for funds less urgent.
Since he was first granted a US visa by Bill Clinton in 1994, Adams has hogged the media limelight on American tours. This time, however, he will be overshadowed by the McCartney women, who are expected to appear on Larry King Live.
The women have also been granted an audience with President George W Bush while Adams and other Northern Irish politicians are excluded from the White House for the first time in more than a decade.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Well I haven't seen that many movies regarding this issue. I do read however and have a collection of books. As I said in my earlier post, I don't support the violence perpetuated, but fail to see the difference in the American revolution and the NI revolution. America, the Republic of Ireland, parts of Africa, India, etc and so on, freed themselves from British rule and none did so over a nice afternoon of tea either.
So I am not misunderstood, my support is for freedom from British rule for Northern Ireland, not for terrorists. I was simply making an analogy that the American colonists had to eventually resort to terrorism.
A tragic and sad situation for such a beautiful country. My ancestors came from the west-central plains of what is now known as the Republic of Ireland.
I wonder if ersatz-Irish Kerry is one of these? The article only mentions Kennedy.
You're lacking major brain function, or never read the history of the Amercian revolution, just come out and admit it.
Mama,
Have you been drinking again?
No, have you?
You seriously don't know anything about the electoral college and the whole two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner thing? You also don't know that the American Revolution was won with a minority of support? Less than half supported freedom from England and less than half again actually contributed to freedom. This is how the gays/pro abortion minority are winning today. You should lay off the bottle and pay attention.
I don't agree that the American soldiers who fought the British in the US were terrorist or that the Revolutionary War was terrorism. Terrorists, for example and for starters, target unarmed combatants and they wear no uniforms. They shun combat with high risk and avoid fighting the other sides army. Yes, the Revolutionary War was a use of violence to end British rule, but the means of that war were not wholesale attacks on civilians but usually two armies lining up on a field of battle in quaint maneuvers from a type of fighting in rows and columns that the world doesn't even know today. The equation doesn't work to say that the American Revolutionaries were terrorists. And while most Irish-Americans imply that the Brits never left anywhere without being violently thrown out, it simply isn't true. The Brits left most places because at the end of WWII they could no longer afford their Empire. They left the Irish Republic because they couldn't afford to fight there after WW I and the costs of the Easter Rebellion became too high for them after the Brits over reacted and shot the IRA prisoners. I've some Irish relatives too in Ireland and my grandmother came from Dublin, though I doubt if she'd agree with much of what I say since she was rabidly anti-British. My present day relatives know the complications and dispicablness of today's IRA.
When you compare Ulster to America then your analogy is flawed, but there is a comparison with the American Revolution.
When the Irish gained their independence the 6 counties of Ulster remained with the UK because this is what a majority of the citizens there wished.
Think of the Irish Republic as the USA and Uslter as Canada.
This is the proper analogy.
Actually, that's a rather lame reason to keep an island divided. I'm sure you could find plenty of counties here in the US that would secede given the chance. Would you favor letting Berkeley or San Francisco or areas along our southern border go just because a majority of residents wished not to remain in the US. Popular approval isn't the only thing that should determine a countries boundaries. Geography, history, language and culture are also important.
The Republic of Ireland isn't a third world country or a tyranny. It's a democratic republic and just as free and as prosperous as the UK. Ireland is a single land mass with a common language and just because 57% of 6 counties don't want to be a part of it isn't a good excuse to keep it divided.
The IRA's day is over though and it is time for them to disband.
Why are you calling the American colonists, terrorists? What terrorist acts, specifically, are you referring to?
I was not aware that American colonists assassinated a member of the royal family or attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister. Or that American colonists committed acts that can be compared to a terrorist organization.
"In 1972 the “provisionals” extended their terrorism to England, where it culminated in the bombing (1974) of a Birmingham pub that killed 19 persons. In response the British parliament passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, outlawing the IRA in Britain. The IRA assassinated (1979) Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Brighton, England."
Hmmm, come to think of it, is there another Irish-American today that could be called a senior Senator? Kerry, after all, isn't even Irish, though for years it didn't stop him from saying he was. It was quite a hoot when he denied saying that he'd ever said he was and this denial was debunked by statements in the Congressional Record!
It is a shame that some would think that because some Minutemen hid behind trees (cover and concealment) to fire at British soldiers they were no different than folks who leave bombs in pubs. These types of arguments are another example of why it is so hard to talk about the PLO with many Europeans too. They simply cannot make the moral distinction between the IDF killing senior PLO terrorists with precision, and often killing no one else, and the PLO's deliberate targeting of as many civilians as possible by blowing up Pizza Parlors, buses, and cafes. Too often otherwise intelligent people go for the facile comparison by saying "everything is just the same", even when it's clearly not.
Yorktown involved the French, so there was something dastardly about that.
12 March 2005
"IN the 10 years since the first ceasefire, over two dozen mostly young men from nationalist areas of the North were murdered by the IRA.
Alleged drug dealers, former members who spoke out, and those who faced down senior IRA personnel have been shot or stabbed to death. 'P O'Neill's' revelation this week that the IRA offered to shoot those allegedly involved in the murder of Robert McCartney was met with amazement and outrage. But shooting people, killing or maiming, is what the on-ceasefire IRA have been doing for the last 10 years.
It's just that the killings have been denied, or done under a cover name, or the political will was missing to attack Sinn Féin or those murdered did not have Robert McCartney's five sisters. Most were sanctioned, some were not, leading to internal disciplinary measures taken against members. The numbers killed are far less than those in 70s, 80s and early 90s, and, until Robert McCartney was killed five weeks' ago, members had not been implicated in any death for about 18 months.
Also, loyalists of various shades have killed far more people in the same period, mainly in internal feuds and sectarian assassinations. Four people was killed last year as a result of the security situation, by far the lowest in the history of the Troubles. None were killed by the IRA, though dissident Bobby Tohill only narrowly escaped after being abducted by an IRA gang. However, paramilitaries continue to exercise control of areas through the use of punishment attacks.
According to the PSNI, republicans carried out 23 shootings and 41 assaults last year. This year, four shootings and six assaults were blamed on various republican groupings. The majority of the attacks were carried out on the orders of the IRA, while others were blamed on the INLA.
Again, loyalist groups were responsible for a larger number of punishment attacks, 89 shootings and 75 assaults last year. Since 1994, republican groups have carried out 312 shootings and 740 punishment beatings. John Breslin reports."
In the final analysis the apologists for the IRA have to rationally justify the organization sending some of it's members to Colombia tp instruct the FARC guerillas in bomb-making and other terror techniques.
So it's it's Ok with you if the Hispanic minority in Texas, New Mexico and California gets those states returned to the Republic of Mexico? Being a contributor to Free Republic demands a certain minimum intelligence.
Long live Ulster & the Scots-Irish.
The colonists didn't practice terrorism against the British.
The colonists made war on the British soldiers not British civilians. The colonist didn't wipe out civilians to take out British individuals.
War and terror aren't the same thing. You should know that.
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