Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 54 total)
  • Anyone else shocked by this?
  • Pigface
    Free Member

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465

    Maybe shocked isnt the right word but the more I learn about N.I. the more I realise how murky it all was. Was the MRF no more that a death squad? the type of thing Britain criticised so vociferously in places like Chile under Pinochet or Nicoragua.

    toys19
    Free Member

    Not shocked. As far as I am concerned execution is never right and made worse (if it is possible to be worse) by the fact its extra judicial.
    I guess the people at them time may well have thought they were doing the right thing.
    I am sure that what will happen will be vilification of the lower orders and vindication of the politicians/commanders involved.

    mrmoofo
    Full Member

    About spot on …

    I guess people will say if was different times. Whlist the Republicans hardly behaved well, the security forces were in cahoots with the loyalists much more than anyone thought. The behaviour to catch the Shankhill Bitcher was also very murky

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    rwc03
    Free Member

    Is this news? I thought it had previously been published, but maybe not the names.

    It’s not right but it does sound like targeted killing of some nasty people rather than indiscriminate bombing.

    mrmo
    Free Member

    As it is fairly accepted that unionist paramilitaries were given information from British Sources, that the British Army were also killing people doesn’t surprise me in the least.

    The bits of interviews I’ve heard seem to be along the line of “I knew that it happened”.

    Has anyone put his hand up and said “I deliberately shot an unarmed civilian”?

    crankboy
    Free Member

    There was a book about this 20 years ago I thing it was called operation nemisis . Lad passed SAS selection and instead of joining the regiment was whisked off to Belfast to top people on very doggy Intel.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Was this about the same time the IRA were randomly blowing up unarmed civilians? No, not shocked or surprised really.

    pondo
    Full Member

    The Nemesis Files WAS pure BS though –
    “On Thursday (01/08/96) Paul Bruce, the author of The Nemesis File was detained at 5:45am at his home in Weston-super-Mare, by officers of the RUC. A copy of his manuscript containing a new chapter, which the publisher claimed would substantiate his claims, was also seized. The Nemesis File was a best selling book billed as a true story of an SAS squad that had executed about 30 men in Northern Ireland, of which Bruce had claimed to be a member. Defence sources had always ridiculed the claims, and even Sinn Fein described them as “totally outlandish”. Paul Bruce was flown to Northern Ireland and questioned by the RUC under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and a day of claims and statements followed. On Friday (02/08/96) the RUC issued a statement. The book was a “work of fiction”. Paul Inman, who used the pen name Paul Bruce, had never worked for the SAS. The closest he had got was working for several months in Ulster as a army vehicle mechanic. The RUC confirmed that he could now face a charge of wasting Police time. A senior SAS source said “We are delighted this man has been exposed as the phoney we always said he was.” Reported in The Telegraph 01/08/96 and 02/08/96.”
    I think that’s a complete fiction and totally seperate from this new MRF stuff.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    “We were hunting down hardcore baby-killers, terrorists, people that would kill you without even thinking about it.”

    Doesn’t sound unreasonable during a war.

    ton
    Full Member

    every side killed innocents in Ireland…..old news.

    winston_dog
    Free Member

    Doesn’t sound unreasonable during a war.

    This is the problem. It wasn’t a war.

    If it was a war then you could not prosecuted the terrorists, they would of been POW’s with the associated rights.

    Nobby
    Full Member

    Doesn’t sound unreasonable

    +1

    The western world has been hunting down Al Quaeda ‘top brass’ and killing them for over a decade – right up to the top man in that organisation. Is it really any different?

    Bazz
    Full Member

    Read the book “Dirty war” by Martin Dillon, these aren’t exactly new revelations.

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Is it very different to surgical strikes against al-quaeda targets by hit squads or drones, just a different landscape and a different time. In any war there will be collateral damage, sad as that is, and there will have been on both sides in this conflict too.

    rudebwoy
    Free Member

    Not shocked–it goes on in every ‘conflict’–however the british state is always keen to show how morally superior they are, and how they never sink to the level of the ‘terrorist’– hypocrisy i think it’s called.

    cranberry
    Free Member

    Doesn’t sound unreasonable

    +2

    Terrorists deserve a dose of their own medicine now and again.

    globalti
    Free Member

    Read the book “Watching the Door” for a frightening insight into all this.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    This is the problem. It wasn’t a war.

    I’m pretty sure the IRA would disagree with you.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Terrorists deserve a dose of their own medicine now and again.

    What about the victims of the “death squads” who weren’t involved in terrorism and were assassinated because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? What medicine had they been handing out?

    ton
    Full Member

    what about the innocents who were taken from their homes by the death squads??
    oh, i know we will let those off eh?

    stayhigh
    Full Member

    Well those two book recommendations will sort my night shift reading out for me next month.

    coopersport1
    Free Member

    War is dirty and yes it was a war. Civilians rightly or wrongly occasionally get killed.
    40000 of them in London during WW2. I’m sure this which is old news was far less indiscriminate than the IRA bombings in London

    franksinatra
    Full Member

    I read Operation Nemisis years ago so not shocked at all. I think this is a bit like all of the GCHQ / NSA disclosures recently. Everyone has a pretty good idea that it happened, this is just the ‘official’ confirmation of that.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Was this about the same time the IRA were randomly blowing up unarmed civilians? No, not shocked or surprised really.

    +1

    There was a war and innocent people died, hardly surprising…….

    winston_dog
    Free Member

    It wasn’t a “War”. By this I mean the current legal definition as stated in the Hague Conventions. No Declaration of War was made.

    I am not arguing rights and wrongs, just stating the fact that it wasn’t a war.

    This also applies to the Falklands Conflict, “War” was never declared.

    Terrorists deserve a dose of their own medicine now and again.

    So lets allow our military and politicians to do what ever they want completely outside the law. Or create new laws as required.

    The Internment Law of 1971 probably did more to help the IRA than anything else.

    franksinatra
    Full Member

    There was a war and innocent people died, hardly surprising.

    I think the difference was that the British were picking off targets based on intelligence, rather than the IRA approach of detonating indiscriminate bombs in public places killing innocent people including children

    winston_dog
    Free Member

    I think the difference was that the British were picking off targets based on intelligence

    Well that’s relief. They did a bit of research before executing a UK citizen without a trial. I’m glad that’s sorted.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    Tea and medals all round?

    kilo
    Full Member

    Bazz – Member
    Read the book “Dirty war” by Martin Dillon, these aren’t exactly new revelations.

    Iirc the dirty war is a depressing book, a series of accounts of lives ruined by violence on all sides. I believe it has the account of a pair of lads one catholic and one Protestant shot by a death squad as they were having a friendly drink in their local and ones of there girlfriends crying on the grave hours after the funeral, very miserable. Thank god we’ve moved on if only a little, one hopes the young there won’t fall for it all again

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Tea and medals all round?

    I don’t think we want to give the IRA any medals, besides they just become MPs and get nice fat state pensions 😉

    Nobby
    Full Member

    The OP’s question wasn’t whether it was right or wrong.

    franksinatra
    Full Member

    Thank god we’ve moved on

    Apparently not

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25029987

    Pigface
    Free Member

    Another thing I find amazing having been to N.I. is how small some of the places are, Derry is tiny, I find it hard to believe that the serious “bad guys” werent known to all and sundry. I worked with a lad from Belfast who was a Catholic and was threatened by “hoods” for being a tearaway, he knew who was under the hood, it was a bloke who worked in a hardware store, he knew that when he was 14, so I find it hard to believe that the security forces didnt know who was causing trouble.

    franksinatra
    Full Member

    I find it hard to believe that the security forces didnt know who was causing trouble.

    That is the thing, they did know. This was in the glory days of spying, no computer programs monitoring emails, real life people on the ground following people, using informers, bugs and covert gubbins. If you are interested in it, The Operators is about as fascinating a book as I have ever read. It is about 14th Int company who did all of the seriously undercover intelligence work in NI.

    Amazon Linky

    seizednuts
    Free Member

    Cant help feeling its just going to open old wounds. They want immunity from prosicution for anyone found to be involved with terrorist acts before the treaty was signed.
    Yet they want to be able prosecute the goverment for what was done to them.
    It was a conflict with no winners and both sides played dirty.
    I cant think queensbury rules was any good?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I’m in two minds about this.

    “executing unarmed civilians” is a pretty powerful phrase and not something that a free democratic country should be doing, particularly to its own citizens!

    But on the other hand we seem happy enough to drop bombs and fire cruise missiles to kill “insurgents” in other countries and I don’t suppose we actually check if they are carrying a gun at the time or not.

    So do we only object to execution when it is up close and personal?

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    A drone strike is no different to an execution. So yeah, must just be distance to the target that causes the hand-wringing.

    winston_dog
    Free Member

    hand-wringing

    FFS. Being concerned about the execution without trial of UK citizens on UK territory by the UK military, is hand wringing? If you think it’s reasonable then you better hope some future government doesn’t take a dislike to you and yours!

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    I doubt the IRA expected any different and if I joined them I certainly wouldn’t.

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