Replacing the sheep
Oh dear. Just when the forces of surrender engagement had steamrollered any opposition to talking to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taleban, Syria, Iran and any other enemy of civilisation they could find to make nice with -- all on the basis that the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’ proved that through talking to terrorists swords would be beaten into ploughshares and lions lie down with lambs -- Northern Ireland terrorism picked up its automatic weapons and started firing again.
Two British soldiers were killed and four other people injured yesterday when masked gunmen opened fire on a group of soldiers outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim. Tonight, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack followed hard on the heels of a warning by Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, that the threat against his officers and military personnel was at its highest for almost a decade.
Today, the former Northern Ireland Secretary Lord Mandelson dismissed the attack as the work of a splinter group which would have no effect on the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’. But with Irish terrorism, you never could see the wood for the splinters. The Provisional IRA, after all, had itself originally splintered off from the Official IRA because the PIRA thought the Officials had sold out to the British. Now that Sinn Fein/PIRA is in the government of the province, violent Republicanism has splintered again into several different groupuscules of which the Real IRA is but one, all fuming that the Provos sold out to the British.
The fact is that the ‘peace process’ resulted in a Faustian pact. It is undeniable that the situation in Northern Ireland has been transformed for the better and that its children are now being brought up in a world unknown to their parents -- a world without bombs on the streets. And that is a benefit which cannot be gainsaid or ignored, not least by those who have not experienced a life lived under the terrible shadow of such terror.
But it has come at a high cost. Because the dynamic of the ‘peace process’ is that the process itself becomes all consuming as it must be kept going at all costs. So to keep the men of violence on board, no price is too high and any downside is denied.
The first price was the message that terror works: the greater the threat of violence, the more leverage you get. There was no principle the British government would not abandon to keep the ‘peace process’ on track. Men guilty of terrorist murder were let out of jail and went straight into the administration of the province. The IRA wasn’t even required to surrender its weapons, which were merely ‘put beyond use’.
The second price was the destruction of the moderate Republican and Loyalist political parties, leaving the province to be ruled by the two extremes of Sinn Fein and the DUP.
The third price was the rule of law. In various areas, this was suspended as the paramilitaries beat their swords into drugs, prostitution, smuggling and protection rackets – and an emasculated and demoralised police force ceded the streets to thug rule.
Nevertheless, brutal though this was it did for a while keep order of a kind on the streets. But amongst the thugocracy, a number of political extremists retained a presence and an undimmed appetite for terrorism. And there is an obvious bleed across from racketeering to the terrorist splinter groups.
But these groups are extremely difficult to police. The British Army had been spectacularly successful in infiltrating and suborning the IRA and thwarting its operations; by the end, an estimated one third of its operatives were British informers and the vast majority of its operations were stopped. But with ‘peace process’ normalisation, the informer networks evaporated. The police do not have anything like that degree of intelligence – not least because one of the conditions Sinn Fein/PIRA laid down was the emasculation of the police. So Special Branch was simply destroyed and with it went the whole structure of intelligence gathering.
As the threat rose, Orde’s warnings became more and more urgent. Two weeks ago, a large bomb was left in Castlewellan, a few miles from the Ballykinler army barracks. So Orde called in help from the army’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment. But now look at the response to this from Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, captured by Slugger O’Toole in an interview on BBC Radio Ulster’s Inside Politics show yesterday afternoon in which McGuinness called the decision to use the SRR against these groups ‘stupid’ and ‘dangerous’, ‘like stepping back in time’, and sending out ‘a very negative message’ to ‘deal with a threat that many people think is over-inflated’.
Within a few hours, this ‘over inflated threat’ had left two dead and four injured outside the Antrim barracks. The idea assiduously disseminated by Sinn Fein that political violence was a thing of the past had been violently exposed as false.
Now that they are democratic politicians, however, the Sinners might have been expected to get unequivocally behind the efforts of the police to do everything in their power to combat the terrorist splinter groups. They have not. They have issued only a criticism of the killings on the tactical grounds that the attack has set back the goal of a united Ireland.
This attack has left them stranded between, on the one hand, the fact that they renounced terror merely as a (possibly temporary) strategic adjustment to achieve their end of a united Ireland, and on the other by a rising tide of paramilitary violence that threatens their own ‘democratic’ position along with the security of the state.
I am reminded at this grim time of a joke. A pen in Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo contained a wolf and a sheep. Above the pen was the quote from Isaiah: ‘And the lion shall lie down with the lamb’. A visitor to the zoo was very impressed. He said to the zoo-keeper, ‘How did you achieve such a miracle?’ The zoo-keeper replied: ‘Simple. Every day we replace the sheep’.
Previous
Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Alex Massie | Coffee House | Faith Based
Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (50)
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Popular Blog Posts
1 Ignore the European Court and deport Abu Qatada tonight - Douglas Murray
2 The danger for the Lib Dems - James Forsyth
3 We must be honest about honour killings - William Maxwell
1 Ignore the European Court and deport Abu Qatada tonight - Douglas Murray (97)
2 Don’t let’s be beastly to the bankers - Fraser Nelson (71)
3 We must be honest about honour killings - William Maxwell (59)
4 Lawson: Abolish DECC - Fraser Nelson (48)
5 The government will have to fight for Lords reform - James Forsyth (39)
Search this blog
Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
Melanie Phillips blog archive
sponsored links
THE PRESENT FINDER
1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk
OLIVE BRANCH FLORISTS
Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844
RUFFS Bespoke Signet rings
62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk
Apollo Magazine | Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2012 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Jenny
March 8th, 2009 11:45pmMel, I was expecting this to be the subject of your Mail column tomorrow but you've posted here on it instead - there certainly is a lot to say on it (although most journalists won't bother with the home truths you point out here).
This incident just blows so much cant out of the water, about Northern Ireland, about the ludicrous Israeli/Palestinain comparison with Northern Ireland, terror in general and so on.
The press are only interested because it is the authorities that are under attack but, as you rightly suggest, there has been no 'peace process' where the gangsters have simply replaced all law order, such is the fear they are held in. In many parts now the gangsters are the 'law'.
With soldiers dead, the appearance of peace - and that is all it ever was (forget the mainstream media's despicable lies) - is now shattered.
To navigate your survival in Northern Ireland now, you must vote for an extreme party (as Mel points out, the 'peace process' saw the end of all the moderate ones) and in the really rough areas you can forget normal politics at all - just align yourself with a gangster who you think won't hurt you.
Peace. What peace is this?
Colin
March 9th, 2009 12:05am"They have issued only a criticism of the killings on the tactical grounds that the attack has set back the goal of a united Ireland."
Are you for real?
I'm no supporter of Martin McGuinness, his comrades murdered and maimed a number of my friends during the "troubles"; but I watched him on TV earlier today and he was unequivocal in his condemnation of this attack and those responsible for it.
People in conflict zones the world over would do well to watch and learn from the news clips of the people of Antrim and their heartfelt, measured and dignified tone as they contemplate and unanimously condemn this repulsive act.
Clearly the images I refer to have failed to reach the different planet that you seem to live on these days.
Michael
March 9th, 2009 12:14amYou pay lip service to the total and utter transformation of life in Northern Ireland that can only be the mark of someone who has, at best, been and travelled through the region only briefly, and at worst has never even been there at all.
No, sensing a wonderful opportunity, you have instead chosen to piggy back on the deaths and the injuries of those so violently involved here in order to once again rail against those who believe that dialogue should play a role in resolving conflict.
There is and will no doubt continue to be an extremist political presence in Northern Ireland for some time, but every passing day these people find themselves more marginalised and isolated, relics of an older age, because quite simply the peace process is working and will continue to work. There is no longer a wide support base for this kind of wanton criminality.
And why? Because people sat down and talked, swallowed pride, made horrifically painful decisions and eventually, over time, progress has been made and will continue to be made. Simply because people, old enemies, shunned the kind of bullet diplomacy you would seem to advocate.
Generationally we are still very close to the raw hatred, mistrust and violence that characterised the worst years of the Troubles. But it is clear that a politically peaceful Northern Ireland has emerged, and it will be one in which future generations will decide their direction for themselves, and that could well be the unification of Ireland, who knows? But it will come about peacefully, and it will have been because people sat down and talked to one another.
Joe Strummer
March 9th, 2009 1:48amThe fascists of the IRA who tried and failed to overthrow democracy in Ulster by bomb and gun were on the ropes in the early 1990's due to a lethal combination of both deep infiltration of the Provos by the British security services and an onslaught by the Loyalist UVF who wiped out the IRA's fearsome East Tyrone Brigade who were "carrying the war" for the IRA in the North.
The British Government had Irish Republican terrorists exactly where they wanted them but instead of destroying this evil once and for all, they devised the phoney " peace process" simply to allow Adams, McGuinness and co to save face.
Sadly,this horrific Government error has came back to haunt Northern Ireland.
Kiwi
March 9th, 2009 3:37amIt’s going to be interesting to hear the reaction to this cowardly attack from the likes of Sinn Fein’s, so far silent, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who claim to have turned their backs on terrorism in favour of the ballot box. And will there be a condemnation, I wonder, from the newly decorated ‘Sir’ Edward Kennedy, having received his honorary knighthood for amongst other things, his efforts to build peace in Northern Ireland? And these were…? The same Kennedy, who, in 1971, introduced a resolution to the US Senate demanding the expulsion of British military forces from Northern Ireland. At the time, Kennedy said, "Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam... The conscience of America cannot keep silent when men and women of Ireland are dying. Britain has lost its way..."
Derek BLADES
March 9th, 2009 3:54amTalking to terrorists is a time-honoured tradition preceded by the equally time-honoured denial "We never talk to terrorists". Think EOKA, Mau Mau, FRELIMO, ZANU and ANC. The Northern Island peace process was just the latest example. As Obama, Clinton and Mitchell thankfully seem to acknowledge, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and talking to Hamas and Hezbollah is the only way to bring peace to those troubled lands. It is true that there is some nasty stuff in the Hamas charter, but this should be seen as their opening bargaining position just as getting the Brits out of Northern Ireland was the opening position of the IRA. In the course of discussions the room for compromises emerges. Hamas won’t get all it wants but neither will Israel.
Neil
March 9th, 2009 8:23amGerry Adams was interviewed a length on Monday's (9th March) Today programme at 0810. He condemned the attack, and urged assistance for the police. Once again we see the deadly consequences of mixing politics with religion. The latter especially is a stain on society.
GaryO
March 9th, 2009 9:49am@Derek BLADES
"Hamas won’t get all it wants"
Hamas, in its menifesto (inspired by the qu'ran) declares that it wants to eliminate (kill) all Jews.
So, in order to negotiate a peace with them, how many do you think Israel should settle for?
Derek BLADES
March 9th, 2009 9:58amWell said Neil. I would go further. Religion is a festering sore on society.
Carl
March 9th, 2009 10:06amMelanie, I see a lot of "told you so" gloating from you, but not a single statement of regret that two of our soldiers have been murdered.
steve
March 9th, 2009 10:29amWell put Colin and Michael. The fact that these are the first deaths of British soldiers in Northern Ireland in over ten years speak to the success of the peace process whatever Melanie says. I was in Belfast last week and saw a functioning society that would not have existed 20 years earlier.
Trumpeldor
March 9th, 2009 11:11am@Coli,Michael and Steve
I do hope all of you are right and the death of these soldiers was only an isolated "act".
Only future will hopefully support your side of the story...
Original Tony
March 9th, 2009 11:39amDerek Blades...you just don't get it do you? You cannot negotiate with terrorists.
"In the course of discussions the room for compromise emerges"
What a load of baloney...it seems that only the forces of good (Israel) make compromises and in the case of N Ireland its Britian.
Then, at a time of its choosing and a flip of a switch the nice little deal with terrorists is shattered. It happens again and again world-wide.
Wake up and smell the roses man!
Linda Smith
March 9th, 2009 11:47amNeil (9 Mar 8:23 am) posted "Once again we see the deadly consequences of mixing politics with religion. The latter especially is a stain on society."
It is impossible to separate out a person's religion from their politics. A person's religious beliefs (or none) underpins their world view and attitudes to the world, ie their values.
Derek BLADES
March 9th, 2009 12:13pmLinda Smith. March 9th, 2009 11:47am wrote "It is impossible to separate out a person's religion from their politics. A person's religious beliefs (or none) underpins their world view and attitudes to the world, ie their values." I have read this several times both forwards, backwards and sideways. I presume Ms Smith had something in mind when she wrote it. Can she tell us what it was please?
Nannette
March 9th, 2009 12:13pmThis government have sent out a very loud message that terrorism pays, and is not only acceptable, but "in vogue".
I'm sure when this shower of inepts who are supposed to lead us, catch up with the gunmen, the first offer on the table will be a knighthood, lots of money, and a job in politics, plus the usual round of the media, with chat shows, talks at universities, etc...
But God help anyone demonstrating against these terrorists.... they'll end up in jail for whatever "phobia" the PC loonies will concoct.
Hannah
March 9th, 2009 12:20pmMichael, March 9th, 2009 12:14am. What the heck is this: “you [Melanie Phillips] have instead chosen to piggy back on the deaths and the injuries of those so violently involved here in order to once again rail against those who believe that dialogue should play a role in resolving conflict”
It is not that dialogue should not play a role in resolving conflict at all. It is that there should not be a pretence of peace talks when behind the scenes criminality runs amok. Why should innocent people in Northern Ireland suffer because a creep like you wants to hear that peace process has been successful when it plainly hasn’t?
People in England get furious when the police don’t answer 999 calls or refuse to investigate crime. This is what Northern Ireland is like now only much worse because of the mafia element. The gangsters reign. People don’t go to the police because they live in terror. Terror has won.
“quite simply the peace process is working and will continue to work” – no it isn’t. “There is no longer a wide support base for this kind of wanton criminality” There’s an ever-growing base for it because people are too scared to go to the law.
Michael Burleigh explains futher: “It is an illusion to think that the absence of bombs has meant the rule of law has been re-established in hard-line loyalist or republican areas in Northern Ireland.
“Anyone former terrorists dub a delinquent or drug dealer - in other words, anyone who crosses them - is liable to be beaten up with baseball bats and iron bars until he flees the province.
“The IRA's mafia-like activities have carried on unabated. Everything from so-called 'tiger kidnappings', where they stalk and hold a bank employee to facilitate a robbery; fuel laundering, where the pink dye is removed from cheap agricultural diesel which is then resold at the full price; smuggling of alcohol and tobacco; fake mortgage applications; insurance fraud - all of these continue to be used to fund gangsterism.
“This highlights the folly of dealing with terrorists. Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell suggests that we should be talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, using the 'success' of the peace process as an example of what can be achieved. That is beginning to look a very hollow boast indeed. Not only are sections of Northern Ireland effectively run by the paramilitaries but the attacks on British soldiers have begun again.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1160485/MICHAEL-BURLEIGH-The-Real-IRA-atrocity-just-waiting-happen.html
David B
March 9th, 2009 12:38pmSinn Fein have condemned that attack and urged assistance for the police. The credibility of their earlier resistance to Special Reconnaisance has been undermined so this will probably now go ahead.
The War on Terror means that there will be no return to assistance from Noraid in the US.
The peace process will continue, and the last gangsters unable to change will eventually disappear. This is what has to happen in the Middle East too.
stanley Jerusalem
March 9th, 2009 12:54pmDavid B - I presume that you mean we all have to wait until this scum die in their beds at a grand old age [ just like the Nazi Concentration Camp Doctor in Egypt]. That's your Peace Process is it? And people have the gall to criticise Israel for reacting to the firing of thousands of rockets from Hamas-governed Gaza.You'll be saying next it's all just high spirits.
Michael
March 9th, 2009 1:25pmHannah - Instead of copy and pasting the views of someone who I have read and respect, but fundamentally disagree with on this particular interpretation of events, perhaps one day you could be brave enough to formulate your own opinions.
I saw the peace process as being about the implementation of a structure where the problem of political violence could be tackled and eventually surmounted, and through which a democratically viable solution would emerge. That is an ongoing situation of which I acknowledge, and tackling the gangsterism that has come in the wake of disengagement from the ways of political violence is an absolute must. It will take years for scars to heal on both sides of the divide, and I would have no doubt that there will be tragic incidents that will act to hinder that process, but the progress has been remarkable in Northern Ireland and in society there in general. That is an undeniable fact, and to refute that is simply foolish in the extreme. It is this progress that has the overwhelming support of the vast majority of people who live and work in Northern Ireland, and it was their desire to turn their backs on the people shooting soldiers and blowing up civilians that has brought Northern Ireland forward and out of the darkness in the first place.
Blue peter
March 9th, 2009 1:28pmWe do not just talk to the terrorists, we invite them into our bosom,clothe and feed them with platitudes!
stanley Jerusalem
March 9th, 2009 1:46pmAnd the man said to the snake whose wound he had healed
" Why did you bite me?"
and the snake replied
"because I'm a snake".
Dixon
March 9th, 2009 1:49pmDerek BLADES
March 9th, 2009 12:13pm
Linda Smith. March 9th, 2009 11:47am wrote "It is impossible to separate out a person's religion from their politics. A person's religious beliefs (or none) underpins their world view and attitudes to the world, ie their values." I have read this several times both forwards, backwards and sideways. I presume Ms Smith had something in mind when she wrote it. Can she tell us what it was please?"
What she is saying is that if you want to strike a moral posture on an issue...as you do in these debates...you will need a metaphysical basis for your morality. Like you, I renounce "God given" morality, but I follow it up by consistently renouncing notions of "right"and "wrong" as well. Philosophers have recognised this dilemma for over a century. Why are some people so slow to accept the obvious. If you want "morality" you have to accept religion. If, like me, you believe religion to be a lie, you have to be consistent with that and accept that there really is no such thing as "morality" and no basis for the kind of moral posturing that you exhibit in these debates.
I have no problem in renouncing religion because I am a nihilist in my everyday outlook. You, sir, need to explain to us, what your moral positions are based on. Before you cite Utilitarian guff, I'll say I've read Mill and whilst his attack on religion is spot on, his attempts to rationalise morality in material terms is an exercise in vain sophistry that I find embarrassing to countenance.
I beseech you Mr Blades, you are half way there already, have the balls to recognise that "creation" is a pile of steaming doo-doo out of the rectum of the Almighty! Have the guts to drop your lefty morality and see the world as the festering dung-heap of self-interest that it really is.
Hannah
March 9th, 2009 2:51pmMichael, I understand that Michael Burleigh exposes your foolish cant for what it is but that’s no reason to beat up on me. I doubt I’m the first person in the world to cite academic excellence. In the real world it’s one of the most common elements of reasoned debate. There’s no need for you to shoot the messenger just because you’re losing.
“I saw the peace process as being about the implementation of a structure where the problem of political violence could be tackled and eventually surmounted, and through which a democratically viable solution would emerge.”
Well it plainly hasn’t worked, has it? So what are you crowing about?
“That is an ongoing situation of which I acknowledge, and tackling the gangsterism that has come in the wake of disengagement from the ways of political violence is an absolute must.”
Not so fast, chum. The gangsterism was always there and was intimately connected with paramilitary groups long before the Good Friday Agreement. It most certainly has not just “come in the wake of disengagement from the ways of political violence”. The Good Friday agreement has seen the gangster element of paramilitary groups flourish, with the British authorities and mainstream media hoping no-one will notice. It was only because these were troop deaths that the mainstream media class is interested.
“the progress has been remarkable in Northern Ireland and in society there in general.” Only if you callously airbrush out the events there that don’t match your oh-so rosy image of the place, Michael.
The gangsters (often former - and even active - paramilitaries) have been having a field day ever since the Good Friday agreement. No-one wants to acknowledge they’re growing in number for fear of undermining said ‘peace process’ and so they’ve had a licence to do what they want. Never mind how many ordinary people get thrown under the bus, as long as everybody in the mainstream media keeps up the appearance of peace.
My, what a ‘conscience’.
Ronnie
March 9th, 2009 4:26pmAh Dixon! A true breath of fresh air. I thank you!
George Laird
March 9th, 2009 6:07pmDear Melanie
This is a shameful article.
You continue to use the actions of a few as dirt to paint the many.
You did this in your article on Bulgaria and have done so here as well.
You are so out of step with your ideas.
The world has moved on and left you behind.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Andras
March 9th, 2009 7:53pmGeorge Laird,
I can't help wondering why, if as you claim 'the world has moved on, leaving Melanie behind' do you bother to waste your obviously very valuable time by visiting her site?
John Edwards
March 9th, 2009 8:49pmI agree with Michael, Melanie is just "piggy backing" on this issue. It's all about Israel as usual. I don't think she knows any more about Northern Ireland than she did about Bulgaria!
There is no evidence that the Real IRA has more than miniscule support and I have no doubt the current political compromise in Ireland will be robust enough to continue.
That is not to say the power sharing arrangements are perfect, there seems to be a drift to further geographical separation of the communities and little real integration. Who knows the long term consequences of that?
But most people agree it is better than the alternative of continuing the conflict.
George Laird
March 9th, 2009 10:23pmDear Andras
If you allow people to spout this kind of nonsense and get away with it unopposed; you're not doing your civil duty.
This type of nonsense must be met and shown up for what it is.
What does it say that someone gets their jollies out of an Aid Convoy getting attacked and innocent people injured?
Finally; my time has the same value as everyone else. I don't see it has having more worth than anyone else.
But thank you for thinking it is so.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Joe Strummer
March 10th, 2009 12:52amAnd the terrorist slaughter continues with the cold blooded murder of a policeman just outside Belfast tonight.
I'm sure self- styled Human Rights Campaigner George Laird will be out on the streets of Glasgow this week demanding an end to the " shoot to kill " policy and other "war crimes " of the terrorist RIRA, won't you, George ? If not, why not ?
Derek BLADES
March 10th, 2009 4:47amDixon. March 9th, 2009 1:49. I liked your reflections on Linda Smith's assertion that "It is impossible to separate out a person's religion from their politics."
Like you I am an atheist but unlike you I have a perfectly respectable, normal set of moral values. They happen to conform to those of Christianity (New Testament) but this is a chance thing and I would no doubt have a slightly different set if I had been brought up in a Buddhist country.
What I find rather striking is that while all religions have views on how we should behave towards other people and advertise them as their own inventions, they all tend to be remarkably similar. In reality of course they are just codified versions of what our distant ancestors noticed were effective rules for keeping order in society. There is nothing god-given about them but they have proved useful over the years and I find no inconsistency whatsoever in following them while rejecting the nonsense that observing them will bring rewards in an afterlife.
Hannah
March 10th, 2009 9:32amGeorge Laird: “What does it say that someone gets their jollies out of an Aid Convoy getting attacked and innocent people injured?”
No-one got their jollies out of an aid convoy getting attacked and innocent people being injured. The ‘aid’ won’t be used as aid. It will be stolen by Hamas. There is nothing ‘innocent’ about George Galloway, a man who calls Saddam Hussein courageous.
What we’re all laughing at, George Laird (do we have a Scottish heir to Galloway in the making?), is that the Egyptians decided to remind George Galloway that Hamas does steal aid, which is why they wrote anti-Hamas slogans on the aid trucks.
What’s funny is that ghastly Galloway had to go all the way to the Middle East to have that fact rubbed in his kitten-impersonating face – something he was raging at Rod Liddle for suggesting to him but a few weeks ago in Britain. Yoo hoo, Galloway. Have you got the message now? Will you believe the Egyptians if you don’t believe Rod Liddle?
Kiwi
March 10th, 2009 10:02amDerek BLADES: "What I find rather striking is that while all religions have views on how we should behave towards other people and advertise them as their own inventions, they all tend to be remarkably similar."
It's called the Golden Rule, and cannot be provably claimed by any organised religion; simply put: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Original Tony
March 10th, 2009 10:32amDerek Blades...you say you are an atheist...an atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of God. to know this, you must have the knowledge of God and therefore by extension must believe in yourself and cannot therefore be an atheist.
Furthermore, I would like to chat to you about atheism in a fox-hole as you are about to be bayonetted to death or as you lie dying from cancer on your death-bed. Remember to call me then will you?
Have a nice day!
Linda Smith
March 10th, 2009 11:18amDerek Blades (10 Mar 4:47am) you posted:
"I have a perfectly respectable, normal set of moral values."
Who is the arbiter of what constitutes "respectability" and "normality" ?
"all religions have views on how we should behave towards other people ...they all tend to be remarkably similar"
Compare and contrast Christianity and Islam. They are not similar. For example, Christianity seeks conversion by non-violent persuasion; Islam forcefully converts by violent "jihad".
Whereas Christianity instructs "love thy neighbour as yourself", "do unto others as you would do unto yourself" etc, and the Christian States give equal rights to all citizens, Islam is a supremacist religion that instructs that Jews are related to pigs and apes, and that believers of other religions, the infidel, are given less citizens' rights as "dhimmi".
Examples of how religious based values dictate politics:
Jews and Christians may ostracise those who turn away from the religion, but Islam condemns apostates to death. Iran passed such a law last July.
The Arabs refused to accept the UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947) because as Moslems they could not countenace a Jewish State, and declared war.
phil
March 10th, 2009 11:25amthe blade "They happen to conform to those of Christianity (New Testament)" that in itself shows what a twerp you are -the new T follows on from the old and Christianity is inclusive of it -your purpose obviously is to insult us and it is noted yet again -your toxicity increases with each passing day
Hannah
March 10th, 2009 11:54amEDWARD HEATHCOAT AMORY: What the weasel words of Gerry Adams really mean
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1160768/EDWARD-HEATHCOAT-AMORY-What-weasel-words-Gerry-Adams-really-mean.html
MikeF
March 10th, 2009 12:34pm"Once again we see the deadly consequences of mixing politics with religion."
We do no such thing. The motivation behind extreme Irish Republicanism is a mix of 19th century nationalism and early 20th century Marxism. One of the, hopefully crucial, differences between the situation in Northern Ireland now and in the late 60s when the former Troubles brewed up is that the 'institutionalised' (for once the word is valid) discrimination on the basis of religion that used to exist in the Province has more or less evaporated. The 'Real IRA' cannot therefore pose as the protectors of an oppressed community in the way that first the Official and then the Provisional IRA did. Instead they are exposed as purely secular ideologues with no motivation except the satisfaction of their own narcissistic intolerance and penchant for violence.
Dixon
March 10th, 2009 1:55pmDerek BLADES
March 10th, 2009 4:47am
Dixon. March 9th, 2009 1:49. I liked your reflections on Linda Smith's assertion that "It is impossible to separate out a person's religion from their politics."
Like you I am an atheist but unlike you I have a perfectly respectable, normal set of moral values. They happen to conform to those of Christianity (New Testament) but this is a chance thing and I would no doubt have a slightly different set if I had been brought up in a Buddhist country. "
NO Mr Blades...did I say anywhere anything to indicate that I am an atheist? Again, as in the thread about Bulgaria, we discover your poor comprehension of the written word. Read what I wrote earlier over and you will see that I said I renounce "God given " morality. I didnt say I am an atheist.
Then you say you have " a perfectly normal set of moral values..." What an incredibly shallow and ignorant thing to say. If you had been a ten year old in Germany in 1940, a "perfectly normal set of moral values" would have included regarding Jews as "untermenschen". If you today were a ten year old living in Gaza you might be one of those taught at school that a "perfectly normal set of moral values" includes regarding Jews as sub-human, also.
It is really the very most basic of all basic starting points in any debate about "morality", whether in psychology, philosophy or sociology, that what is "normal" and acceptable in a given culture is utterly plastic, found through history to take the entire range of forms conceiveable. In ancient Sparta, it was part of "normal" morality that all boys were literally thrown to the wolves as a rite of passage and as adults were required to be homosexual, having relations with women only for the purpose of procreation. Is that part of your "normal moral values".
You say there are fundamental rules and that they are...
"In reality of course they are just codified versions of what our distant ancestors noticed were effective rules for keeping order in society. There is nothing god-given about them but they have proved useful over the years "
Tell us then, if I find that it is in my interest to break all those rules, to kill, for a start, why should I not? RATIONALLY, if it is in my OBJECTIVE interest to do so...and I harbour no culturally indoctrinated set of "moral" compunctions to the contrary WHAT OBJECTIVE REASON is there for me not to. I might add that if you really think "normal" people find it morally difficult to break those "rules", you are deluding yourself. Most people do it most of the time. I have known men who would kill without hesitation in the line of their work and even one for whom that was his line of work ( although officially a "driver" for aid convoys ). These people showed no inkling of guilt or equivocation over there actions.
Only two things keep order in society. One is the power of the state, articulated through laws and their enforcement. The other is ...where this is true, which is seldom if ever...fear of posthumous retribiution. This of course, being the problem with religion, that such beliefs dont in fact influence "sophisticated" minds.
So there is nothing whatever "natural" about morality, any more than I accept that which is "God given".
And to make that crystal clear even for someone who in spite of his way with words demonstrably fails to understand what is written, I am NOT an atheist.
No, sir, you havent an ethical thought in your head. You are just a whining drone, a robot, repeating parrot-like the twaddle programmed into him. I have rarely come accross such a combination of superficial articulacy and abject lack of insight.
Joe Strummer
March 10th, 2009 2:23pmMikeF - There was no " institutionalised discrimination " against Ulster Catholics in the 1960's. This was just another much repeated Irish Republican lie now taken as fact to justify their attempt to overthrow democracy in Northern Ireland.
The IRA were never " secular " either. They have a narrow, fascist, sectarian Gaelic Roman Catholic ideology.
Hannah
March 10th, 2009 4:15pmNotice how the BS merchants hereabouts have lost their tongue since the policeman was shot.
Simon Heffer has just written a brilliant article over on The Telegraph. It is absolutely heartbreaking to know how much more of this is in store:
'The only surprising facet of the wicked murders of two soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland is that so many people seem so surprised. An old record is stuck in a familiar groove. Since the days of O'Connell a movement peaceably pursuing the legitimate aim of independence from Britain has always given birth to a faction determined to seek it by violence. It is why the Fenian Brotherhood, Sinn Fein, the IRA and then the Provisional IRA came into being, as a faction decided that democracy was unacceptable. The canting hypocrite Gerry Adams knows this better than most, as does the former IRA commander Martin McGuinness. They both moved into the Provos when the troubles flared up in 1969. If they pretend not to fathom what is happening now, let them look in the mirror. What a fine example they have set.
'It is, as usual, the British Government with blood on its hands following the deaths of these three brave men. In its spin-driven pursuit of triumph, Labour pronounced the problem of Northern Ireland as dealt with. It was lulled into this by an IRA "permanent" ceasefire: not realising, or not wanting to realise, that a ceasefire was only as "permanent" as the criminals in the IRA who so graciously decreed it. It was a feather in New Labour's cap that it had brought peace to the province. It set Tony Blair up in a post-prime ministerial career as a part-time peacemonger (though even his friend Lord Levy now feels he has failed in that). However, just as Labour thought and arrogantly proclaimed that it had abolished the cycle of "boom and bust", it has not actually abolished the violent, psychopathic element in Northern Ireland. Perhaps Mr Brown should add that to the lengthening list of things for which we await an apology...
'For most – and this is the truth that neither the Prime Minister, nor Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, dares admit – being a "republican" is about being engaged in mafia-style criminality linked to the drugs trade. And the emasculation of the RUC, and the scaling down of troops in the province, has made the expansion of criminal empires even easier...
'The gangsters may realise that, even when they achieve the unification of Ireland, they will have to carry on killing soldiers and policemen; only this time it will be the Irish ones who try to limit their criminality. And pity the poor republic, virtually bankrupt, facing massive tax rises and swingeing spending cuts, having to take on this burden, one that many of its own politicians expressly do not want.'
And that is the tragedy. The British authorities have withdrawn and the Irish authorities simply don't have the capacity to cope with these people. The terrorists want blood whoever is in charge. What was it Stanley in Jerusalem said about the snake?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4968419/Northern-Ireland-has-not-been-at-peace---despite-what-Labour-claims.html
George Laird
March 10th, 2009 7:00pmDear Hannah
"George Laird (do we have a Scottish heir to Galloway in the making?"
You are such a laugh.
I have never stood for public office.
So, no need to keep shoving my name forward.
I was once asked by a voter why I wasn't the candidate in a by-election.
I just laughed, the right man, John Mason, SNP MP was the correct choice.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Dixon
March 10th, 2009 8:34pmFurther apologies fpor my typing errors...rendering "their" as "there" in my above rather lengthy contribution.
phil
March 10th, 2009 10:38pmDixon I am reminded of the phrase we have better fish to fry ,when you spend your undoubted time and intellect trying to put right an unrightable wrong -namely the thought processes of the blade .Thankfully he has gone cruising,wishful thinking I know but he could take the laird and SIN with him .
Michael
March 11th, 2009 1:12amHannah - the 'BS' merchants, as you put it so eloquently, may well simply be people who disagree with the way in which you view this situation in Northern Ireland, and would like to engage you on the topic.
But hey, if you want to talk about your fellow contributors on this hallowed board of lucid thinkers and free speakers in such a manner, who am little I to stop you?
However, I am finding it difficult to continue to discuss this issue with someone who can’t actually accept that progress has been made in Northern Ireland: I am sorry, but that just isn't a rational standpoint. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that, to be honest, chum, it shows you as being determined to refute any chance of a settlement to the dispute or that you are so blinkered by your political leanings (whatever they may be) that you can’t bring yourself to the realisation that life for the majority of Northern Irish people is a vast improvement to what was in the not too distant past.
So what, I would ask, Hannah, is your solution to the problem?
Me, well I would be loathe to throw away the progress that I believe to have been made during the ongoing process of transition. In no way is the situation in Northern Ireland ‘rosy’ but neither is it irretrievably damaged. These lunatic fringes do not enjoy any kind of popular support whatsoever within their respective communities and as such merit the kind of political and social isolation that awaits their kind until, at some point in the near future, they become extinct.
And that point will come in Northern Ireland I believe, but clearly we are not quite there yet. The unanimous political condemnation and the social and religious unity shown in the province in the wake of these attacks shows just how far down the long road we have travelled.
Hannah
March 11th, 2009 11:00amMichael, where is this “progress” you speak of? It’s a fiction cooked up by the mainstream media. It does not exist. How does creating a state in which people are so scared of paramilitary gangsters that they won’t go to the law constitute progress? It is not progress. It is a wicked lie.
I know the majority of people in Northern Ireland want peace. Who said they didn’t? Why do you keep wheeling out that platitude in the hope that it will cover up the truth?
The solution to the problem is to give law-abiding people a chance to live their lives without fear of the paramilitaries. For that to happen, there must be an effective police force with proper intelligence. The law must also send the signal that if you kill people, you will spend a very long time in jail.
Northern Ireland used to have such a system of law and order. It was called the RUC. This, though, in the name of ‘peace’ was disbanded.
Its surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities were diluted to almost nothing. Moreover, because the ‘peace’ process involved releasing murderers, the signal went out to a whole new generation: you can murder people and get away with it. Life sentences won’t mean life.
This signal of weakness to the paramilitary gangsters was enhanced by the fear people now have of them, because they know the police are no longer allowed to do their job properly. So the perpetrators now have little fear of the law and the victims of crime in Northern Ireland now have little faith in the law to protect them.
This system of law and order was thrown under the bus because we were told that if it wasn’t there would never be a ‘peace process’. Well, we’ve dismantled it now and where’s the peace for the six shot on the weekend and the policeman shot yesterday?
There won’t be any paramilitary-style early parole for the families of those killed – their life sentence has only just started. Go and tell them about your “progress”.
phil
March 11th, 2009 11:08amHannah please be sure I have no truck with what the IRA did,nor its leaders but last night we heard the words coming from Martin Mcguiness that we thought we would never hear and now we need to ensure that he and his people stay on the peace road -I think he has shown that the attack by EHA was wrong and particularly nasty -there is immense progress being made by the people of N.Ireland and we should encourage that .Their world is changing and we must adjust to that .Next stop the M E -somehopes !
John D
March 11th, 2009 2:17pmMichael, if you won’t listen to members of the public, why not the experts? Colonel Tim Collins might be a good starting point:
“They [the terrorists] don't need public support.”
This seems to be confusing you and many others, Michael. All this waffle about the ‘majority want peace’ - we know that.
“All they need is a few weapons, somewhere to hide them, and a police force that is incapable of stopping them.”
That’s it in a nutshell. What part of that don’t you get?
He goes on: “Why has Britain's political establishment so shamefully weakened our defences against terrorism to the extent that this murderous minority seems to think it can strike with impunity?
“The murders of the past few days haven't come out of the blue. In November 2007, a group of police officers were lucky to survive when they were attacked in Dungannon and Derry. A bomb exploded under a police car in County Tyrone last year, though again - mercifully - with no fatalities.
“In all, there have been 18 terrorist attacks since last year. Such incidents may not have been widely reported on the mainland [you can say that again]
“Will anybody be brought to justice for these crimes? The omens aren't good. The cards have become so heavily stacked against the cause of justice that terrorists have reason to think they can escape it altogether.
“The emasculation of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary, once the world's most effective anti-terrorist force, is largely to blame for this shambles. Today - after the 'reforms' recommended by former Tory chairman Lord (Chris) Patten - it has become a shadow of its former self.
“Yes, it was necessary to open up the RUC to recruits from all sections of Northern Ireland society, Nationalists as well as Unionists. But so desperate was the Blair government to appease Sinn Fein that it didn't have the stomach to stand up to the apologists for terror and so inexcusably sacrificed the demands of effective policing.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1161114/COLONEL-TIM-COLLINS-The-deadly-cost-tying-police-hands-Northern-Ireland.html
Michael
March 11th, 2009 3:42pmJohn D - I utterly and resolutely recognise the validity of what you are saying as regards the impotence of features of policing in Northern Ireland as is. Completely. No-one in their right mind could think anything else and aspects of the excellent article by Colonel Collins makes compelling reading, and he is of course well-placed indeed to pass judgement. And thank you for linking that because I don't usually pick up on the Daily Mail and he is someone I respect hugely.
I would disagree with you slightly over the RUC, and argue that alongside the superb efforts in thwarting republican terrorism, it held too much of a blind eye to the gangsterism inherent in the loyalist movement, and eventually came to be seen as an institution far too divisive to retain its previous structure in the future of a Northern Ireland moving away from the depravities of the past. Its reformation and restructuring was an inevitable feature of the peace process, and clearly beneficial to the key desire to bring some sense of closure to an area of brutal division in Northern Ireland that would hinder any kind of progress towards a democratic solution to the Troubles.
My point throughout this discussion has always been to recognise the steps taken and gains made over the last decade or so, and you are right in supposing that I haven't paid enough attention to the criminal realities that an understrength police service face.
However, I see a land that has moved away from being an entirely polarised and politically violent entity towards one where an increasing sense of unity and reconciliation permeates, and admittedly I like to focus on this because I think that is what most accurately captures the mood of the majority of the population, and most accurately represents what the future for Northern Ireland will hold.
Jenny
March 12th, 2009 9:11pmMichael says the RUC “eventually came to be seen [by whom? By Sinn Fein] as an institution far too divisive to retain its previous structure… Its reformation and restructuring was an inevitable feature of the peace process”
1) How was the creation of a weakened and increasingly inept law enforcement agency ‘inevitable‘? That is just a weasel word for Blair ramming through his non-existent peace process.
2) How does the creation of a weakened and increasingly inept law enforcement agency generate ‘progress‘?
If you were an elder generation of terrorist supporters and you wanted to make it easier for the next generation of terrorists to get away with impunity, then you would consider it progress. For everyone else, it is a recipe for chaos.
As the workings of a proper police force have crumbled, it has simply left Northern Ireland like the Wild West. As people keep pointing out to you: people are often too scared to go to the police. That doesn’t equate to peace.
We should “recognise the steps taken and gains made over the last decade or so” – and what about all the stuff the media covered up? For 10 years now we’ve had nothing but people glossing over the truth, as you would wish. Why?
Michael says: “I see a land that has moved away from being an entirely polarized.” So why have all the moderate political parties been wiped out? Honestly, where are you getting this guff from?
“and politically violent entity towards one where an increasing sense of unity and reconciliation permeates” Again, what are you talking about? These people are off the leash and the police are now so stripped of all the things that used to help them fight this sort of crime there’s little chance of catching the perpetrators and stopping them from doing the same again.
“I like to focus on this because I think that is what most accurately captures the mood of the majority of the population” – yes, they may want peace, but they’re not going to get it with a police force that can no longer do its job properly, are they?
This “most accurately represents what the future for Northern Ireland will hold”. It emphatically does not. These people want a united Ireland (and they will get it). Simon Heffer spells out just what will happen then (and his view is shared by many politicians in the Republic of Ireland who know just what will happen):
'The gangsters may realise that, even when they achieve the unification of Ireland, they will have to carry on killing soldiers and policemen; only this time it will be the Irish ones who try to limit their criminality. And pity the poor republic, virtually bankrupt, facing massive tax rises and swingeing spending cuts, having to take on this burden, one that many of its own politicians expressly do not want.’