‘AA’, the British state and the IRA

[8den]

I don't think C/Red would stoop to the "Huntley is innocent" level mind.

He's come out with some corkers on Russia threads mind you.

 

[Idris2002]

Eamonn McCann:

Eamonn McCann: State role in IRA killings changes everything

One of the best pieces I've seen him do in a long while, though there is an element of "shit writes itself, dude" - "It's not rogue officers, but a rogue state".

 

[ViolentPanda]

But who were better at breakdown cover? The AA or the RUC?

Green Fleg.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Amazing how the British maintained a single unified strategy over 5 decades and about 9 different governments from 2 different parties.

Not so amazing. The politicians might have changed, but the diplomatic and military establishment didn't.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Or Green Flag

Fleg!!!

 

[eoin_k]

Not so amazing. The politicians might have changed, but the diplomatic and military establishment didn't.

I think you give 8den 's argument more credit than it is due. His reference to five decades is out by ten years to start with (1975-2016). Then, he fails to mention that the nine governments were lead by only six Prime Ministers, one of whom was never elected. Could we call Blair's 2 1/2 terms and Brown's 1/2 term one government? Was there a shift in strategy during the Blair-Brown transition that I missed? The question that Casually Red 's claim begs is whether or not the mid-Nineties saw a change in British government policy, not this dilettante nonsense.

Ulsterisation: Troops withdrawn and security becomes a policing matter, under New Labour (tick)

Normalisation: While Norn Iron remains a far from functional region of Western Europe, this agenda also seems to have moved forward by leaps and bounds under New Labour. Though, how normal can a society be when communal divisions are institutionalised by the electoral system? (tick)

Criminalisation: The release of prisoners on licence and Sinn Fein's participation in local government makes this the interesting space for discussion. The RUC/PSNI's historic enquiries team carry on their work. Do Sinn Fein's critics from within republican communities gets branded as 'dissident' - flattening out differences between them as a way of criminalising any dissent? You don't need to agree with dissident republicans who have used violence to observe that criminalisation clearly operates very effectively against them, not just in terms of prosecution but also in terms of public discourse and the treatment of people who take up prisoner welfare issues, for example.(discuss)

Cameron just seems to have pushed things backwards, but I doubt that reflects a considered shift in strategy. He's an opportunist Conservative and Unionist who thought he might need the DUP at Westminster.

 

[LiamO]

Chance to wipe out the uvf leadership go for it.

It was the UDA, not the UVF, you halfwit.

 

[LiamO]

The blame rests on the people who decided to plant the bomb and they either mishandled it or manufactured it wrong.

But what if the informer is the person who decided to plant the bomb?

What if he tells his handlers all about his wizard wheeze?

What if the bomb then 'inexplicably' explodes before the 11-second fuse is even engaged - killing the bomber (result for the handlers) and a UDA man (result for the bombers) but also wiping out seven punters who popped in for a bit of cod for their tea?

 

[Idris2002]

Re: the fuse. My understanding was that the bombers miscalculated the length, and had it too short, and that's why it went off prematurely. Where does this bit about it going off before it's engaged come from, LiamO? Genuine question, btw.

 

[krtek a houby]

CR is basically the Forest Gump of Northern Ireland. There's yet to be a thread about anything involving the troubles where casually red can't claim tangent involvement.

Wait till the 1916 threads start and we find out that he used to visit the green grocers were the rebels surrendered and had just been inside buying a head of lettuce half an hour before Pearse showed up.

Hush, now. He's fighting so you don't have to!

 

[likesfish]

Re: the fuse. My understanding was that the bombers miscalculated the length, and had it too short, and that's why it went off prematurely. Where does this bit about it going off before it's engaged come from, LiamO? Genuine question, btw.

If you have a fuse that has to be lit its about the simplest device (bomb) possible explosive fuse and either a detonator. Or just a lump of det cord boom no moving parts needed.

 

[Pickman's model]

If you have a fuse that has to be lit its about the simplest device (bomb) possible explosive fuse and either a detonator. Or just a lump of det cord boom no moving parts needed.

tbh by the early 1990s i suspect ira explosive technology had moved beyond the lit fuse.

 

[dylanredefined]

But what if the informer is the person who decided to plant the bomb?

What if he tells his handlers all about his wizard wheeze?

What if the bomb then 'inexplicably' explodes before the 11-second fuse is even engaged - killing the bomber (result for the handlers) and a UDA man (result for the bombers) but also wiping out seven punters who popped in for a bit of cod for their tea?

Shit happens. The idea that the state has to play by one set of rules while the other side doesn't seems naive to me. Neither side was too bothered about killing innocents while getting upset when the other side did.
ieds misfunction all the time.

 

[Pickman's model]

The idea that the state has to play by one set of rules while the other side doesn't seems naive to me.

the point is very simple and i am surprised you have not grasped it. it is, in brief, that you defeat an insurgency in part by showing your standards. you don't end an insurgency by killing a load of people, because killing a load of people only inflames the situation - see, for example, the effect bloody sunday had for many, many years. if 'the people' can be persuaded to withhold their support from an insurgency you stand a much better chance of ending the conflict than if you run round killing everyone. and it is 'the people' who are the prize. if you are still confused then you should read a bit about counterinsurgency, and i would recommend nagl's 'learning to eat soup with a knife'.

 

[dylanredefined]

Targeted killing is also very effective.

 

[The Flying Pig]

the point is very simple and i am surprised you have not grasped it. it is, in brief, that you defeat an insurgency in part by showing your standards. you don't end an insurgency by killing a load of people, because killing a load of people only inflames the situation - see, for example, the effect bloody sunday had for many, many years. if 'the people' can be persuaded to withhold their support from an insurgency you stand a much better chance of ending the conflict than if you run round killing everyone. and it is 'the people' who are the prize. if you are still confused then you should read a bit about counterinsurgency, and i would recommend nagl's 'learning to eat soup with a knife'.

What is this insurgency you are speaking of? Sounds very much like a term used by capitalist states to undermine a genuine attempt of armed struggle.

 

[The Flying Pig]

Targeted killing is also very effective.

Mountbatten? Brighton? I could go on and yes it can be very effective.
And what is your point?

 

[The Flying Pig]

Shit happens. The idea that the state has to play by one set of rules while the other side doesn't seems naive to me. Neither side was too bothered about killing innocents while getting upset when the other side did.
ieds misfunction all the time.

"Shit Happens"? this proves beyond doubt you only have a colonial understanding of what happened and is continuing to this day in the Ireland of Ireland.
Your other comments also prove you do not even have a limited understanding of what took place. Get yourself educated then you would not make such ignorant conclusions.

 

[Idris2002]

We've got a live one here.

 

[LiamO]

Re: the fuse. My understanding was that the bombers miscalculated the length, and had it too short, and that's why it went off prematurely. Where does this bit about it going off before it's engaged come from, LiamO? Genuine question, btw.

My mistake Idris2002 . My understanding (and what I actually originally typed, then changed as I found something that contradicted it) is that the bomb exploded as soon as the fuse/ignition was engaged. From all accounts, this was not what was intended.

Apparently the plan was to hold the shop up at gunpont, clear it, set the bomb, leaving time for the bomb team themselves to exit safely and skidaddle. Thus leaving the targets of the attack sat upstairs when their world literally collapsed around them. Grim stuff indeed.

However it went straight away, killing the Volunteer actually carrying the device in, the UDA man on point duty and eight civilians. The upstairs Meeting had been (again somewhat mysteriously) cancelled at short notice (Johnny Adair confirms he had been there earlier on that day and also claims he was tipped off by an RUC man that the meeting room had been bugged. Question is when was he told this?)

If we accept that the IRA did not do suicide missions ( and in all the years of the armed struggle there appears to be no evidence that they did) then we must accept that this operation went massively wrong - operationally and politically .

That the OC of the area is now publicly exposed as an agent raises many questions (I say 'publicly' deliberately as the writing has been, quite literally, on the wall for him for a few years now. Graffiti has been denouncing him for a long time in Ardoyne).

I suppose the biggest question of all is what has changed recently that brought this into the public domain? It has not exactly been a secret and the silence from Unionists/Loyalists (whose community suffered the devastation of this attack) has been deafening over the years.

 

[Casually Red]

Creepy & obsessive is working out my real name and using it on this forum. Got a while to go before I match your standards.

And cheers like I said you like to make grandiose claims about tenious connections to every event in the past 50 years of NI History, so ta for proving my point.

Tell me do you still have the terrible scar from when you got hit from shrapnel off Mountbattens boat?

Unless your real name is Tedious McArsehole I have no idea what it is, nor do I care . I've never used it anywhere . You silly cunt .

 

[Casually Red]

Eamonn McCann:

Eamonn McCann: State role in IRA killings changes everything

One of the best pieces I've seen him do in a long while, though there is an element of "shit writes itself, dude" - "It's not rogue officers, but a rogue state".

More coming to light . Looks like there may have been a tout at the heart of the Birmingham pub bombings in the early 70s . Cops tipped off in advance , warnings ignored, people left there to be massacred . Records falsified. Innocents stitched up to protect the tout . V murky stuff .

Birmingham pub bombings: 'IRA mole tipped off police' - BBC News

 

[Sasaferrato]

How many lives is a high level informer worth? You stop every bomb you lose the informer.
The blame rests on the people who decided to plant the bomb and they either mishandled it or manufactured it wrong.

Good question. IIRC, Coventry was bombed to preserve the Enigma secret.

 

[Pickman's model]

Good question. IIRC, Coventry was bombed to preserve the Enigma secret.

was it? did the ira really do it for that?

 

[likesfish]

The Sad thing is the British Armys plan was to defeat the ira militarily.

Which it nearly succeeded at which is quite an achievement because the ira could leave its guns in a cache and only come out to play at a time and place of their choosing.

 

[Idris2002]

These are small, likesfish, but the ones out there are far away.

 

[krtek a houby]

Birmingham pub bombings inquests to be reopened - BBC News

Just a reminder that the IRA and their apologists are not the only bastards in this saga.

One of the six wrongly convicted men, Paddy Hill, said outside the court: "They (police) don't want them [the inquests] because there's too many skeletons in the cupboard.

"They had advanced warning and they took no notice. I don't think Birmingham police could spell truth - they're rotten.

"I'm very sceptical about getting the truth."

 

[Casually Red]

Casually Red may be our very own Ambassador from Planet Loon, but his claims to have been on the fringes of this or that incident in the long span of the "late unpleasantness" are by no means implausible. NI is a very small place you see.

I myself have stories I wouldn't share on the interwebs, not only because A) they're not very interesting, but also B) it would be immediately obvious who the people concerned in those stories are, because NI is a very small place.

That I was sitting in a fucking pub and heard the ambulances on the road outside..like anyone else sitting in around over a dozen more pubs in the immediate area that Saturday ? And in hundreds of houses ? If I'd been in the house I'd have heard it go off .

Or that I went to school with someone who's immediate relative was shot ? In my year alone there must have been over a dozen kids who'd lost a close relative, all of them cops and UDR . Prods on the border, it's how it was . There's nothing remotely fantastical about any of that . There was decades long insurgency in south Armagh and west Belfast. 2 very small places .

It's just a stalky little cunt disrupti g yet another thread perusing an Internet grudge . Like a few others .

 

[Casually Red]

Re: eoin_k's list above. The Official/Provie split is usually attributed (in part) to the machinations of Fianna Fail, isn't it?

Attributed by the sticks . It's unhistorical nonsense though .

 

[krtek a houby]

It's just a stalky little cunt disrupti g yet another thread perusing an Internet grudge . Like a few others .