More Questions for British Army and RUC Over Sectarian Murder Campaign

[Portstewart]

Why? BC and his ilk take great pride in the fact that the IRA murder groups were highly infiltrated by the British government.

It turns out they were running both sides of the murder machine.

What they were doing was ending the 'war'.

They ran down the IRA to such a degree with agents that they had nowhere to go but the negotiating table, 9 out of 10 IRA operations were botched by the last few years of the troubles.

They also tried to influence loyalist targetting towards republicans rather than innocent Catholics, with reasonable success in the late 80s and early 90s, with the same end as above.

[dresden8]

What they were doing was ending the 'war'.

They ran down the IRA to such a degree with agents that they had nowhere to go but the negotiating table, 9 out of 10 IRA operations were botched by the last few years of the troubles.

They also tried to influence loyalist targetting towards republicans rather than innocent Catholics, with reasonable success in the late 80s and early 90s, with the same end as above.

I'll take that as an admission that the British government were running both sides of the murder machine.

So, sovereign governments can murder their own citizens willy nilly. It's not acceptable in Syria, Iraq, China, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, South Africa et al.

But it's acceptable in Northern Ireland because the British government was ending the 'war'.

Any wonder normal people think you're scum?

[Theobald]

They also tried to influence loyalist targetting towards republicans rather than innocent Catholics, with reasonable success in the late 80s and early 90s, with the same end as above.

Stay away from drugs mate they'll mess with your head.

[Portstewart]

I'll take that as an admission that the British government were running both sides of the murder machine.

So, sovereign governments can murder their own citizens willy nilly. It's not acceptable in Syria, Iraq, China, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, South Africa et al.

But it's acceptable because in Northern Ireland because the British government was ending the 'war'.

Any wonder normal people think you're scum?

No they weren't running both sides, but they clearly manipulated both sides in order to bring it to an end. What should they have done let each side go on killing each other unto eternity?

They had to try and bring it to an end and they did so by destroying the IRA from the inside with agents and forcing it to the negotiating table.

This is simply a fact.

[dresden8]

No they weren't running both sides, but they clearly manipulated both sides in order to bring it to an end. What should they have done let each side go on killing each other unto eternity?

They had to try and bring it to an end and they did so by destroying the IRA from the inside with agents and forcing it to the negotiating table.

This is simply a fact.

It's simply a fact that they had their agents in both murder machines. They directed murders and at the very least they protected the murderers.

That makes them murdering scum.

[Portstewart]

It's simply a fact that they had their agents in both murder machines. They directed murders and at the very least they protected the murderers.

That makes them murdering scum.

Well it wasn't pretty that's for sure.

But look where we are today, look at where things were in the early to mid 70s and look at how the IRA was run down in the 80s and 90s to the extent that 9 out of 10 of their attempted attacks were f*ck ups, the British intelligence services successfully brought it to an end when many thought there wasn't a hope in hell of it ending.

Again I'll ask what was the right thing to do?

How many lives have been saved by the systematic running down of the IRA effectively ending the troubles and bringing us to the vastly improved situation we have today?

[dresden8]

Well it wasn't pretty that's for sure.

But look where we are today, look at where things were in the early to mid 70s and look at how the IRA was run down in the 80s and 90s to the extent that 9 out of 10 of their attempted attacks were f*ck ups, the British intelligence services successfully brought it to an end when many thought there wasn't a hope in hell of it ending.

Again I'll ask what was the right thing to do?

How many lives have been saved by the systematic running down of the IRA effectively ending the troubles and bringing us to the vastly improved situation we have today?

How many government directed civilian murders would you think are acceptable in the war on drugs?

In the pursuit of bringing us to the vastly improved situation we have today?

Would you be prepared to be counted in the total? In the interest of the right thing to do.

Whataboutery I know, but still valid.

Governments can never kill their own civilians/innocent citizens. Even with the best of intentions. It goes against every concept of civilised behaviour.

Again, I'm no IRA apologist, every one of their killings was wrong.

Governments killing their own people is even wronger. If that's a word.

[centauro]

Whats new, everybody knew that the RUC were sectarian thugs down through the years and had no respect for the minority, Mr Adams fought for equality , the Good Friday agreement, the introduction of catholics into the force plus the success Sinn Fein had in the trasfer of policing when Unionists were saying they would not allow it for years, Accountability for the future supported by the electorate is what the future holds.

Err, you do realise that there were THOUSANDS of Catholics who served in the RUC?

[Ifor Bach]

No they weren't running both sides, but they clearly manipulated both sides in order to bring it to an end. What should they have done let each side go on killing each other unto eternity?

Well said and true.

[Portstewart]

How many government directed civilian murders would you think are acceptable in the war on drugs?

In the pursuit of bringing us to the vastly improved situation we have today?

Would you be prepared to be counted in the total? In the interest of the right thing to do.

Whataboutery I know, but still valid.

Governments can never kill their own civilians/innocent citizens. Even with the best of intentions. It goes against every concept of civilised behaviour.

Again, I'm no IRA apologist, every one of their killings was wrong.

Governments killing their own people is even wronger. If that's a word.

I'm not saying I'm perfectly comfortable with it either, but a cold hard appraisal of it and it's pretty clear what they were trying to do. You can't compare it to a drugs war situation, it was well beyond anything like that.

The British gov't clearly had no idea NI was going to go the way it did in the late 60s, they were caught completely unawares and their initial interventions proved disastrous and it spiralled out of control further into the mid 70s.

After that, slowly but surely they got to grips with it, and through well placed agents by the 80s and 90s they were able to run it down and end it.

It goes against every concept of civilised behaviour you say and you'd have a point, but what was the alternative let it fester on with the whole society stuck in a miserable hopeless situation?

They had a duty to their citizens to end the bloody thing, the IRA regarded it as a war and were fighting dirty, the British were always going to have to get their hands dirty to end it.