Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 177 total)
  • Bloody sunday was unjustifiable and unjustified
  • highclimber
    Free Member

    its taken nearly 40 years and £200m to establish what most people knew in the first place.

    I'm hoping these 'Paras' will be brought to justice.

    mcobie
    Free Member

    Has all the hallmarks of a lynch mob to me 😕

    I don't envy our troops in Afghanistan (or any conflict arena past/present/future) trying to make life or death decissions in the heat of battle that may come back to haunt them in 30 – 40 years time 🙄

    Only those who were there know the real truth, and I suspect neither side will have matching recollections of that days events.

    £200 million wasted for nowt IMHO

    IanMunro
    Free Member

    I'm hoping these 'Paras' will be brought to justice.

    I thought the current policy was to release all the terrorists, so presumably you'd want these given the same justice.

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    highclimber
    Free Member

    the report stated that the officers involved were found to have given conflicting and erroneous accounts of what happened to justify their actions.

    rkk01
    Free Member

    £200 million wasted for nowt IMHO

    Really???

    "For nowt?"

    Or because "Gov'ts of the day" find it rather uncomfortable to establish / grasp / communicate the truth at the time…..

    packer
    Free Member

    £200m to establish the f-ing obvious. Great use of public funds.

    highclimber
    Free Member

    I think that the £200m spent, whilst excessive, has brought justice to all those affected during and since the massacre. that in itself is priceless

    Sponging-Machine
    Free Member

    Bollocks! £200million is a lot of heart bypasses paid for.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Ok, so a massacre of UK citizens occurs on the doorstep. But we shouldn't spend anything finding out why and how it happened?

    mcobie
    Free Member

    I don't want to get dragged into a slanging match on a cycling forum, after all everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I fail to see how spending £200 million has brought justice to anyone.

    I actually find it hard to believe how terrorists (Gerry Adams and crew) are rewarded and now have MP status, and soldiers, many of whome were little more than boys, employed by the government, serving their country are now being branded criminals. At that time the Army were engaged in an armed conflict much like they are now and it worries me that actions taken "under fire" could be scrutinised so far down the line.

    Both sides are likely to have embellished the truth; or just forgotten/confused events of a day that happened decades ago.

    Like I said, I'm not saying my view is right or wrong, it's just that, MY opinion.

    highclimber
    Free Member

    we are fixating on the wrong thing here. it doesn't matter if it cost £200 or 200mil. a result has been achieved that will hopefully lead to some solace for the family of the victims. The report has established that at no point did any of the victims have weapons that would make the paras believe they were a threat.

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    Has all the hallmarks of a lynch mob to me

    yeah, those poor hapless paras were lynched by having their harmless bullets willfully intercepted by people 🙁

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    I actually find it hard to believe how terrorists (Gerry Adams and crew) are rewarded and now have MP status, and soldiers, many of whome were little more than boys, employed by the government, serving their country are now being branded criminals

    Gerry Adams has never been convicted of terrorism but most of them actually served time for the crimes they did what exactly was their reward?

    Both sides are likely to have embellished the truth; or just forgotten/confused events of a day that happened decades ago.

    Yes watching unarmed people being shot by armed troops can be pretty confusing.
    Those young boys shot unarmed civilians what do you want to call them then heroes? Atrocities were committed on both sides and we should not ignore those committed by the state just because we perceive the IRA crimes to be worse

    robdob
    Free Member

    Those young boys shot unarmed civilians what do you want to call them then heroes

    Did the IRA ever NOT kill either unarmed or defenceless people? And they haven't just been "let off" as these soldiers may have been, but actively released from prison early, and rewarded with legitimate power, position and authority?

    highclimber
    Free Member

    they were civilians with a clear intention to PEACEFULLY demonstrate against the laws preventing them from protesting.

    br
    Free Member

    we are fixating on the wrong thing here. it doesn't matter if it cost £200 or 200mil. a result has been achieved that will hopefully lead to some solace for the family of the victims

    No, you are wrong.

    There are two issues here, what happen in Londonderry on that day and why did it take £200m and 12 years to find out.

    Irrelevent of what did or did not happen, and as I wasn't there I really don't have a view on it, but somebody quite frankly has been taking the micheal:

    On 8 February 2008, Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward revealed that the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was still costing £500,000 a month although it has not held hearings since 2005.

    Mattie_H
    Free Member

    At that time the Army were engaged in an armed conflict much like they are now and it worries me that actions taken "under fire" could be scrutinised so far down the line.

    They weren't "under fire"

    A large number of those shot were running away and were shot in the back

    anokdale
    Free Member

    How unfortunate the sniper in Armagh and the rest of his sidekicks who killed 12 soldiers served less than three years in jail, yet they went out with the intent of killing and benefitted from the Good Friday agreement. Unfortunate a Battalion of soldiers who just happened to be Paras were sent to a new conflict, without specific in theatre training and reacted to enemy fire in the same way they had been taught to do so in the previous conflicts.

    Dont nobody tell me they were not shot at that day. When i joined my Battalion there were still guys in the unit who had been there.

    No winners lots of loosers. But dont apply todays standards on incidents that occured in the past.

    Utrique Paratus

    Dont get me started on Maguiness and Adams – Twunts of the highest order.
    And its Londonderry not Derry 😉

    kimbers
    Full Member

    if 200million and legitimising **** like adams or mcguiness is the price for peace in NI then its still worth it

    and the inquiry is just part of the peace process that has to be one of nulabours greatest legacies

    all though its kind of ironic that the introduction of internment without trial among many other disastrous interventions by the heath tory government sounds more like something from nulabours war on terror

    highclimber
    Free Member

    And its Londonderry not Derry

    maybe to you, but not to those who live there.

    Mattie_H
    Free Member

    Dont nobody tell me they were not shot at that day. When i joined my Battalion there were still guys in the unit who had been there.

    Why did no one bother to tell the Saville inquiry then?

    anokdale
    Free Member

    Londonderry all the way pal and you know it, or handback all the money you and Maguiness take quite happily from London

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    actively released from prison early, and rewarded with legitimate power, position and authority?

    Rewarded? By who? I'm sure there were free and fair elections held where those who stood for election were then either elected or not elected according to the electorate's wishes…an electorate who had been jerrymandered for decades.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    robdob
    did you not read my post here you cut it at an odd point here is the rest

    Atrocities were committed on both sides and we should not ignore those committed by the state just because we perceive the IRA crimes to be worse

    I am not defendoing the killing of the innocent I am saying it is wrong whether paras do it or the IRA or UVF. You seem toi be defending one lot of killers not me
    Anokdale 3 years is 3 years more than any para though.
    How m,any soldiers were shot whilst they were under fire and why do only the soldiers claim this and only some of them?

    The official army position, backed by the British Home Secretary the next day in the House of Commons, was that the paratroopers had reacted to the gun and nail bomb attacks from suspected IRA members. However, all eyewitnesses (apart from the soldiers), including marchers, local residents, and British and Irish journalists present, maintain that soldiers fired into an unarmed crowd, or were aiming at fleeing people and those tending the wounded, whereas the soldiers themselves were not fired upon. No British soldier was wounded by gunfire or reported any injuries, nor were any bullets or nail bombs recovered to back up their claims

    wiki entry on this FWIW

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Londonderry all the way pal

    😀

    Free Derry.

    slowjo
    Free Member

    Tough call really. A mate of mine served in NI and he said he and his colleagues spent their days and nights on tour, in a state of permanent fear. You never know where the next bullet was coming from nor who was going to fire it.

    One of my school masters had his head blown off by the IRA. He had been in the army and also said they spent their time in what he called a "heightened state of anxiety".

    None of this condones illegal killing but it might go some way towards letting us empathise with the soldiers on the ground.

    Interestingly, Max Hastings said this morning that he refused to testify as he no longer trusted his recollection of events to be accurate. He was offered a copy of his testament to the earlier enquiry but refused again because he did not want to simply parrot his previous comments. What he did say though was maybe the paras were the wrong regiment to be deployed in that sort of situation as they did not have a history of measured response to events, indeed they were trained to react first, think later.

    I think if you mix armed soldiers and an angry mob for long enough, shit is always going to happen. I really don't know enough about events in NI to even pretend to understand but bad things happened to everyone which is why negotiated peace was the only way forward. Both sides were to blame in many ways, no one came out smelling of roses but we can't crucify the soldiers now.

    BigDummy
    Free Member
    highclimber
    Free Member

    I think if you mix armed soldiers and an angry mob for long enough, shit is always going to happen

    you are implying that british soldiers have the integrity of a wet paper bag.

    They are trained to differentiate between clear imminent danger and an angry mob and to deal with it in a way thats appropriate and justified. They failed and as a result people, innocent people, died through poor judgement and/or trigger happiness

    anokdale
    Free Member

    Bigdummy – The Bogside should think itself lucky then as Support Companies usually deploy Mortars and Heavy Machine guns.

    Thankfully training is specific to task now and hopefully this incident wont be repeated.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    well it was slightly easier to quote as I have not read the 11 volumes yet have you or anyone posting here BD ? **** fast readers then I iwll find th ebit on whether the soldiers were shot at will that do for you or perhaps you could post up something to counter what I said?

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    I have had to re-read the second last sentence in BD's extract quite a few times and I'm still struggling to get the meaning of it – perhaps that is because it is around 100 or thereabouts words long FFS. 😯

    The Bogside should think itself lucky

    I'm not sure the Bogside was ever an area that thought itself "lucky".

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    54.3 While two soldiers (Private R and Private T) sustained minor injuries from acid or a similar corrosive substance contained in bottles thrown down from a balcony of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats, none of the soldiers of Mortar Platoon in Sector 2 sustained any injury from nail or blast bombs, or firearms, despite the fact that most of them were in close proximity to those they said were deploying these weapons and despite the substantial amount of incoming fire which some said they encountered. On the other hand, according to their accounts, the soldiers of Mortar Platoon were able to shoot seven or eight people in the area of the Rossville Flats car park, all of whom were armed with lethal weapons.

    54.4 We have already concluded, for the reasons we have given,1that we have found no acceptable evidence that there was incoming fire before these soldiers opened fire or that a nail bomb exploded as described by Private Q.

    It has not been suggested, nor is there any evidence to suggest, that any of the known casualties was armed with a lethal weapon or doing anything that could have justified any of them being shot

    http://report.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org/volume03/chapter054/

    Like reading two totally different accounts point taken 😉

    EDIT: AH you edited whilst I was reading the report suggesting you had not even read it either 😯

    BermBandit
    Free Member

    Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein, was present at the time of the violence and "probably armed with a submachine gun" but did not engage in "any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire"

    Interesting quote from the BBC report on the matter.

    Seems to me that both positions cannot be correct, i.e. there were no armed indivduals present other than the army and then the above.

    Ultimately, the bottom line IMHO is that the person who deployed shock troops who are trained to react with extreme predjudice, into a policing role is the culprit here. Young, and often a bit south of intelligent thugs with guns are not going to be very good at nice cuddly roles. Self evident frankly.

    Can I offer up a bill for £200 million too please??

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    Junkyard – I have not read it, and was not getting at you particularly. It amuses me that this heated debate is going on here (and in plenty of other places) generally without reference to the immensely thorough and expensive report, which we have not read and are mostly never going to.

    No offence intended. 🙂

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    when said like that it sounds so reasonable BD keyboard laid down in peace 😳
    That report is **** huge is there a brief summary somewhere?

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    There doesn't seem to be a manageable "executive summary", although the bit I quoted above is part of an "overall assessment" in volume 1.

    I'm afraid I think I'm going to have to wait for someone to publish a book summarising the report. Which is annoying.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Bloody sunday was unjustifiable and unjustified

    +1. I can't stand U2.

    mefty
    Free Member

    summary on wikipedia

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    Is this just a re-run of the micro-waved babies thread?

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    It amuses me that this heated debate is going on here (and in plenty of other places) generally without reference to the immensely thorough and expensive report, which we have not read and are mostly never going to.

    If it uses language and sentence construction like above, then I'm certainly not going to read it. Debates like this are no fun if we choose to leave our positions of entrenched bigotry and meet somewhere in the middle anyway 🙂

    That report is **** huge is there a brief summary somewhere?

    +1

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