Real IRA re-brand ...as commies!

[Walsingham]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ter...sh-bankers.html

 

In an interview with The Guardian the Real IRA said: "We have a track record of attacking high-profile economic targets and financial institutions such as the City of London. The role of bankers and the institutions they serve in financing Britain's colonial and capitalist system has not gone unnoticed."

 

Leaving aside the fact that the financially panic-stricken Grauniad have decided to pump oxygen into this drunken rambling, I thought this was interesting as the career terrorists trumphantly announce their 'relevance'. Nice to see that they'll be back to their large scale bombing and shooting now that they have the perfectly sound justification of being the champions of the proletariat.

[Nepenthe]

... IRA (factions) with a communist bent is not anything new, is it?

[Walsingham]

... IRA (factions) with a communist bent is not anything new, is it?

 

There's always beens socialist element in the IRA. But my feeling is that in the 1960s and 1970s that was just trendiness. Everyone with a grudge to bear put on a French beret and claimed the proletariat.

[Raithe]

Actual beliefs, or just a pr spin to attract sympathy/support?

 

What are the odds?

[Walsingham]

Actual beliefs, or just a pr spin to attract sympathy/support?

 

What are the odds?

 

 

Well, obviously in my opinion, almost all terrorists are just murderous bastards who claim causes as an excuse. Not including the poor ****ers who get brainwashed. So from that perspective it's just a pr spin.

 

My analysis is that they want to capitalise on the inevitable funding cutbacks N Ireland is going to see as part of the overal UK budget reforms. They've had a high degree of funding for the last twenty years, and so the cuts will be a big shock. Soon be back to business as usual.

[Calax]

Just gonna say, one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

[Raithe]

Just gonna say, one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

 

It can depend on the lines they draw.

 

There's a big difference between willing to allow the occasional "collateral damage" to occur.. and going out of your way to target schools and "innocent" civilian casualties. The lines of when military/political/economic targets blur with the rest...

 

The ethics and morality of warfare are one of the hardest things to sit down and make sense.

 

Just how capable of justifying "x civilian dead now will prevent/stop a war/oppression that could potentially kill x many more" or balancing key principles... If a "corrupt" government is in power, do you blame the civilian populace for not removing it and thereby feel free to target the civilians?

 

Should you put liberty above everything else? At what point will the ends corrupt the ideal? If "liberty" is the key principle, should you place it above common decency and honor and the way you interact with the rest of humanity? Or if you have "religious faith" as the key principle should that override all other concerns?

 

At a certain point some things can get a touch silly to the outside observer.

[Gorth]

Maybe they are trying to revive the "golden era" of homegrown European terrorists when the Italian Red Brigades, the German Rote Armee Fraction etc. killed bankers and industrialists in "the name of the people". Never mind that people didn't really want to be liberated by them.

 

Not defending those guys, just noting that they were idealists, not in it for the fame or the money.

[Walsingham]

Just gonna say, one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

 

And the other man is a c***.

[Calax]

Just gonna say, one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

 

And the other man is a c***.

Not necessarily, branding somebody as a terrorist is a good way to sway the population to the side of the established authority. People are overly reactionary to call everyone who disagrees a terrorist sympathizer or a terrorist.

[Walsingham]

I was being deliberately OTT to underscore a point.

 

The use of terror tactics is a feature independent of political motivation. It's a tool, like carpet bombing. And just like carpet bombing, it diminishes the user as much as the target (albeit in different ways). If you doubt this, just take a peak into any movement you'd care to define as 'freedom fighters' and you'll find they kill far more of their own people than they do of the target. They terrify and intimidate. They extort and brutalise. That is until they make the final step into becoming nothing more than organised crime.

 

And if you have an example of a proper 'freedom fighter' I shall apologise, and eagerly file it.

[Raithe]

And if you have an example of a proper 'freedom fighter' I shall apologise, and eagerly file it.

 

Hm.. Pancho Villa? While he grew up into a bandit gang.. At later times he was an official who became a "rebel / freedom fighter" against the usurping dictator Victoriana Huerta... Of course, since they successfully booted Huerta out within about a year, they had no time to really.. spin down into the cycle of freedom fighter/terrorism....

 

Although yes, he used train robberiers to help finance the movement..so that might fall towards the "organised crime" aspects...

[Walsingham]

Cool. I'll try to find a book on him.

 

And I believe the term is not 'bank robbery'. It's 'expropriation'. Since the banks stole it in the first place.

[Gorth]

Add Robin Hood to the list of terrorists.

[Raithe]

Cool. I'll try to find a book on him.

 

And I believe the term is not 'bank robbery'. It's 'expropriation'. Since the banks stole it in the first place.

 

One of the things he actually did was steal about 122 silver bars off a train, held a Wells Fargo security guy hostage..and then got Wells Fargo to "fence" the silver bars for him...

 

I was out last night with a friend from Mexico helping her celebrate the bicentennial of Mexican liberty from Spanish rule ... I got a bit of history spun out there