Short Strand

[badinage]

Can I be more specific? What ever I had at my disposal. If it was a baseball bat or a shotgun, whatever.

Well Carrier implied yesterday that Loyalists who entered the Short Strand should be "gunned down". I suppose I was asking if you would use stick to legal methods of defence, or use illegal firearms, and if it was the latter, whether you'd fire warning shots, or just shoot to kill.

What would you do?

Call the PSNI, then use minimal proportionate force. Once my family were safely out of the house, I don't think I'd kill somebody to prevent them from damaging my property. Especially if they were teenagers.

If I was a politician, then I'd call on nationalists to join the PSNI, and call for PSNI personnel levels to be maintained at an appropriate level to be able to deal with this weekend's intensity of public disorder.

[badinage]

That said, Loyalist riots are making a fairly convincing case against a united Ireland.

They're also making a fairly convincing case against an internal solution ever succeeding.

[Bogwarrior]

Where were those "Never on a Sunday" loons with their placards, yesterday?
I don't understand the weekend riots at all. It's not like it was the first parade re-routed, even this year. I think after the Republican riot in Ardoyne, last month, the Loyalists now want to flex their steroid pumped muscles, to effect change. The danger is now, the Parades Commision will give their rulings based on who is the best rioters.
Throw well, throw shell.
BTW, hows that strategy of your's going, DOD?

[DOD]

I was looking for something more specific?

Beat them up with baseball bats? Try to set them on fire with petrol bombs? Try to detain them until the police arrive to arrest them? Scare them off with warning shots using an illegally-held firearm? Wound them with the firearm? Kill them with the firearm?

Blow up a shopping center? Bomb a pub?

Fair play to you JJ. Fail to comment on the loyalist rampage (apart from a few lines praising the police) yet make a joke about the IRA. Do you still wonder why we don't have faith in your policies on the 6 counties?

[DOD]

BTW, hows that strategy of your's going, DOD?

Fairly good. How's the boll-ocks scratching going?

[DOD]

That said, Loyalist riots are making a fairly convincing case against a united Ireland.

So we're supposed to let them at it, because we're afraid of what loyalist might do if there's a UI?

[jjcarroll]

That said, Loyalist riots are making a fairly convincing case against a united Ireland.

So we're supposed to let them at it, because we're afraid of what loyalist might do if there's a UI?

Wasn't that the logic of the IRA campaign in Britain? To make the British in the large cities unwilling to support the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Pidge]

That said, Loyalist riots are making a fairly convincing case against a united Ireland.

So we're supposed to let them at it, because we're afraid of what loyalist might do if there's a UI?

What??? How did you get that from my point?

The only point I was making is that these riots add weight to the claims by many that NI isn't politically civilised and stable enough to come into the country. Not, before you put some more words in my mouth, a view I agree with.

[Cara]

Looks like we are going to have another night of it....BBC news reporting further trouble at the minute...cars burning in North Belfast, rioting at the Westlink and attempted hijacking of a bus. Also large crowds forming in the North & West. I've just been out and there is literally not a car on the roads, its like driving in the middle of the night.

[Maeve]

Looks like we are going to have another night of it....BBC news reporting further trouble at the minute...cars burning in North Belfast, rioting at the Westlink and attempted hijacking of a bus. Also large crowds forming in the North & West. I've just been out and there is literally not a car on the roads, its like driving in the middle of the night.

Stay in and stay safe, Cara, and all in the troubled areas.

If (big if) the police contain this and the nationalist community stays cool, it very well could be the last gasp of the bad days. The Sunday Times indicated that the IRA is going ahead with decommissioning in the midst of the turmoil-- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFrien ... 87,00.html
Historic times...