BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?

Subject: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Fiolar
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:55 AM

Recently seen in a news item. A dinner and dance is to be held to celebrate the escape from the Maze prison, 20 years ago a large number of IRA prisoners, some of which are still at large. The forthcoming clebration is being condemned by Unionist politicians. Does this mean that any one who celebrates for example Allied prisoners escaping from German POW camps during WW2 should also be criticised?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:29 AM

Does this mean that any one who celebrates for example Allied prisoners escaping from German POW camps during WW2 should also be criticised?

I guess the family of any German killed in an an allied escape would be justified in criticising such celebrations, Fiolar. There are two sides to every argument as you well know and such blatant feigned naivety does not become you.

If you want to start a flame war try to be a bit more subtle in future..;-)

Cheers

Dave the Gnome (On no-ones side but the right one!)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:20 PM

Nothing the Irish nationalist community does to celebrate it's victories over the years escapes criticism by Unionist politicians. Par for the course. The Unionist politicians abusing their position to stir up a tempest in a teapot, as usual.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:29 PM

Quote: The forthcoming clebration is being condemned by Unionist politicians. Unquote

Presumably these are the Unionist politicians that are still celebrating the Battle of the Boyne (1690)? (Check out the URL, by the way)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: okthen
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:47 PM

Who's throwing the party? If it's Her Majesty's Government I'd suspect a trap.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 03:28 AM

Nothing the Irish Unionist community does to celebrate its victories over the years escapes criticism by nationalist politicians. Par for the course. The nationalist politicians will abuse their positions to stir up a tempest in a teapot if opportunity offers, as usual.

Now sue me for plagiarism.

A plague on both your houses! Listen to Stan Rogers' song, "TheHouse of Orange" again!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:49 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:55 AM

Why did the orange chicken cross the road?

Because his father, and his father's father, and his father before him, have always exercised their right as British subjects to cross the Queen's highway in accordance with hallowed tradition.


Why did the green chicken cross the road?

To protest against provocative road-crossing by the triumphalist orange chicken which has always denied his right to exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dead Horse
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:53 PM

The RFA Maidstone was used as a prison ship during those times, and I often wonder if any inmates managed to tunnel their way out!!!
(OK, so I am a Goons fan)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 03:06 PM

" A plague on both your houses! Listen to Stan Rogers' song, "The House of Orange" again!"


Here here Hrothgar!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 12:55 PM

Dead Horse, Seven detainees on board the prison ship Maidstone did manage to escape by swimming ashore whilst the uniformed goons "kept watch". Ard Mhacha

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:54 PM

Hrothgar, simple minded attempts to equate the supposed oppression of British Unionists with Irish Republicans and Nationalists, or to equate the supposed oppression of Israelis to the oppression of Palestinians, always conveniently overlooks/leaves out one essential, salient fact: who wields ultimate political and military power over whom.

Sorry, but the "pox on both houses" argument is bullshit. "Both sides" are not "equally to blame" for continuing political violence and bloodshed. Political violence and repression is NEVER that simple.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:57 PM

People tend to slide very neatly from saying "both sides are at fault", which is true in most conflict situations, to implying "both sides are equally at fault", which is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 04:20 PM

I agree entirely. It is entirely the fault of the British, Guest. We should have nuked Ireland years ago and put and end to the problem once and for all.

Cheers

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:47 PM

Dave sounds like you will be going to Turkey, Engerland- Engerland-Engerland. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:02 PM

Hehehe! - I only live 2 miles form Old Trafford, Ard Marcha, and I have never been! Can't understand all the fuss myself. I prefer other games myself. Can't understand why the fish in the barrel haven't gone for the bait this time though;-)

Cheers and glad someone at least can trade absurdities...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Tam the Bam (Nutter)
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:06 PM

No Comment!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:20 PM

Careful Dave, Gnomes should tread softly, remember how we eliminated our Leprechauns. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 02:44 PM

I thought the Leprechauns were still there AM! I remember seeing Sean Connery in Derby O'Gill and the little people:-)

Do you know what Saint Patrick said when he drove all the snakes out of Ireland though?


"Are you alright in the back there lads..."

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 03:10 PM

Bus destination, Catterick Army Camp. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 10:58 PM

I find it histerical that US and British citizens are outraged at the Republican community... Geeze louize... after Mai Lai, Jillianwalla, etc etc etc... you'd think folks would find the ladder down from their high hourse, especially since the wankers in NATO had EVERYTHING to do with the war in Ireland. Plague yer own houses first, guys... while I sit and smile over the image of Bic McFarlain driving the warden's green mercadies down the falls road.
Rave on
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 03:02 PM

It was certainly quite a day - the biggest jailbreak in UK history, with 38 prisoners getting out. (The Maidstone had been decommissioned many years earlier, Dead Horse.) Half were recaptured almost immediately, as were most of the remaining 19 over the years. Three were never caught, and according to Northern Ireland police are no longer being actively pursued.

Any unionist hassled for comment by the press would feel obliged to condemn the Letterkenny bash, but most have managed to keep their heads down, leaving the prison officers to pitch in with most of the sound and fury. Ome unionist who couldn't resist sticking his oar in was Jeffrey Donaldson, surely one of the most deeply unpleasant politicians to emerge in a generation. But among the nonsense he spouted there was one sentence I agreed with: the anniversary celebration was, he said, "insensitive, inappropriate and totally unnecessary." It's regrettable, but I suppose inevitable, that nationalists sometimes feel a need to behave like loyalists.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:45 PM

Fionn. Stop trolling it wont help you sell any more bits of journalism. And I would prefer it if you did not try and make your living out of other people dying.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 05:34 AM

"Both sides" are not "equally to blame" for continuing political violence and bloodshed. Political violence and repression is NEVER that simple.

I agree, but I adopt the position that trying to prove who threw the first stone several hundred years ago, and using violence to support the case, puts both sides very firmly in the wrong. If you want to quibble over who might be more in the wrong, go for your life.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 12:12 PM

It's surprising there doesn't seem to have been a movie made about it. No doubt that's to come. Of course to get it made, there'd have to be an (Irish) American brought in to organise things, like in Chicken Run...

When films like that get made, we'll know the war is over.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 02:17 PM

Gareth, Your Government gave free rein to the Loyalists to shoot innocent Catholics, yes, colluded with murderers for years to help them carry out their dirty work.
Please don`t preach to me about murderers, your Welsh butty you keep harping on about would have been safe and well if he would have stayed in his own wee English possesion. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 07:30 PM

Mmmm ! ard mhacha It seems to me that putting "loyalists" and British squadie on trial would confound that, but why spoil a good ledgend.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 05:13 AM

You can rest assured that collusion was rife from the early 70s.
Your attitude to what went on over here and your die-hard support for Bush and Blair puts you farther to the right than your wonderful leader Blair. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 05:19 AM

And do loOk in on John Pilger`s programme to-night on ITV AT 10-45, Pilger reveals the lies regarding the mad rush to war in Iraq. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 08:26 AM

A chara ard mhacha:
I find it somewhat strange that the US drops a cluster bomb on an Iraqui market place and braggs about busting Barbie out of a hospital as if this was the great struggle for humanity that WWII was... and then folks get their nose out of joint over remembering an almost nonviolent break out from the most secure prison on earth.AND... Kev... I always thought the GREAT! movie should be the Joe Doherty break out, which has moments of high comidy, such as when the car would not start in front of Crumlin Road Jail, and Joe took off on foot, wearing a guards uniform... persued by plain clothes cops, through a loyalist neighborhood, and loyalists threw bricks at the cops thinking that they were the RA and that Joe was a real prison guard... But, every so often on mudcat, we have to do a reality check, folks who only know the story through the news or from the point of view of their uniforms must talk together, and we should try and not get sarcastic and angery with each other. After all, in every war the truth is the first and the most common casualty, so both sides need to go through the truth and reconciliation process. Fact is, that the Republican side also has to think about how Britain and the US fooled Republicans into fighting a war against the interest of the Irish people. To those on the ground and at the time, it seemed like the only way to stop torture and bring democracy to a police state under military rule, however, just like the US reacting the way Ben Laudin wishing, and ending American liberty and showing its self as a violent bully, or Ben Laudin acting as the US wanted, giving the US the excuse to end American civil liberties and act like a violent bully, etc. etc. etc. in a never ending cycle of revenge... we need to think of ways to break the script we have been following for generations. I am not pointing an acusitory finger at Republican violence out of context, or saying that both sides were wrong, England and NATO where with out a doupt a colonialist power bringing war to Ireland, but Irish people took the bait. Yes, I have been there, lost friends, and I know that it is easy to say the bait should not have been taken, however, in looking back, in the last line of the great song about Joe MacDonald, what's been won?
Slan, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 02:58 PM

All round the houses to get back to where we should have been thirty years ago...

But that's always the story, not just in Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:11 PM

Ard Mukker, I do luv your ability to comment on the contents of a TV program befor it is broadcast.

But as I said previous why let objectivity spoil a good ledgend.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:30 PM

why let objectivity spoil a good legend

But that's a stick that points in both directions. There's a legend about the benevolent Empire as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:32 PM

And that last one was me with a missing cookie.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:23 AM

Gareth, hoping you seen the Pilger programme, as the Yanks say, scary, and I did read the preview before I seen the programme,
What a pity this programme cannot be seen in the US, Gareth do tell us all that this was lying propagenda.
Remember Blair approved of the US agression, this well researched Pilger programme exposed US lies and gave an insight into the "crazies" who are running the US at the moment, for the good of the world make sure that next year this fascist regime is voted out of office. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:28 AM

Type in ITV [JOHN PILGER] for information on the programme. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:30 AM

Sorry Google would help, ITV [JOHN PILGER]. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 10:51 AM

This might doe it - The journalism and films of John Pilger

Interesting to see the film clips of Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice saying in 2001 and there was no possibility of Iraq posing any kind of threat, because they just didn't have the weaponry.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 01:59 PM

Yes McGrath, watching Powell and Rice emphasising that there was no way that Saddam had WMDs makes Bush and his cohorts outright liars.
As I said previously this was a frightening programme,I do hope the US electorate do the right thing for the world at large and get these "crazies" out. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 06:28 PM

One gleam of hope - they're all saying in the media how Bush is bound to win, because of all the money he can raise and spend, and all the press and the TV backing him over there.

But in Sweden they just had that referendum, and all the money and all the media, and all the main political parties loaded one way, and they still lost (even with a sympathy vote from that tragic murder of the lady in charge of the "Yes" campaign).

People can resist that brainwashing sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 06:41 PM

Ard Mukker - It s not my practice to comment on programs I have not seen. Funny as it may seem to those whose minds are pre closed.

For your infpormation the last time I sitched the "idiots lantern" on was for 30 minutes last week - to watch the Simpsons.

Never mind I am sure that yet another ledged will grow.

BTW given your hatred of anything British could you confirm that you do not use the "British" National Health Service.

Pay UK income tax.

or expect to draw a UK pension ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:17 PM

"Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.
Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".

Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
http://pilger.carlton.com/print

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 08:11 AM

My dear Gareth:
When addressing comments to fellows here, it would be appreciated not to make fun of folk's names. Hating things British is also not the issue here. I agree with much Ard Mhacha has said, and I am in no way anti British any more than I am anti American in my opposition to the unchecked militarism of the USA. I am quick to point out, that though I am anglo Irish, when I lived in west Kerry, I was not in west Britain, as I did in a recent post, that is not anti British, just accurate. The fact is I spend quite a lot of time in Wiltshire and England Scottland Wales and Ireland share a tremendous amount in our folk traditions. The fact is, that I spent time in the Northern counties during the worst of the fighting in the seventies. Mutual respect when we speak with each other is the only way to move forward together and peace begins with respect.
If you want to show Britain at its best, I'd begin with an appology to your friend here, and then continue the disscussion on the points raised. If you want to begin a thread, are you anti British? that is up to you.
Is mise, le meas
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 09:23 AM

heric,

did you post to the wrong thread?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 09:58 AM

It is not the first time this has happened on a Thread Wolfgang,just the usual wee bit of crossed-wires.
And as for poor oul Gareth he is an intellectual non TV watching genius,looking down his nose at us poor dim-wits, that job is still available Gareth you would fit in ideally in that Spin-Doctors post.
Larry find yourself privileged to be insulted by such an intelligent being, and he dosen`t watch TV, some spinner. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:04 PM

Yes, I did post to the wrong thread except that it was the full quotation from the comments that MGOH was referencing above, having seen the speakers on the John Pilger television program.

I was about to ask ard how he knew we wouldn't see it in the U.S., but then didn't bother.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:10 PM

That is I didn't bother becauase I realized he meant that particular (September 22) showing was not in the U.S. Sorry, back to Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:15 PM

You might see some of it - unless I'm mistaken one of the people John Pilger interviewed was Wesley Clark, who was critical of the resort to war on Iraq, so I can imagine selected bits from the programme might surface, as a way of trying to make him seem unpatriotic.

Yeas, this thread is drifting around, as conversations about such matters do tend to sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 07:28 PM

still posting to the wrong thread I offer you this on that:

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/268/wash/Bush_says_9_11_changed_his_ass:.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 07:29 PM

funny file name from the Boston Globe

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 07:42 PM

Ard Mukker - you stiol have not answered the question.

For all your hatered of us Brits -

Do you acept the benefits ?

Gareth

Or is this an intellectual question ?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 08:47 PM

It seems rather an irrelevant question to me, Gareth. After all, in or out of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland would still have a health service and a benefits and pension system.

It's not a million miles removed from saying to someone who, a few years ago, when they were railing at the way the Tories were running the show "If you think they are doing such a bad job, why do you use the Health Service they are in charge of, and how can you bear to go to the Post Office and collect Child Benefit paid by a Government you dertest"

You live in a place that is part of a country, you use the services, simple as that. Even if you think that place should be part lf another country.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 06:50 AM

Gareth, Sorry for the delay in answering, I do go out sometimes.
Do I take the benefits?, Gareth boyo, I would take the shirt of there backs, I take everything thats not screwed down from these bastards.
As I said before I worked in England with your fellow countrymen, and like myself we paid our taxes and National Insurance, and there wasn`t a day that went by that we wern`t scheming to find a way to fiddle our taxes, are you some kind of Saint?, Gareth I am cleaning the Government at the moment, and it is very enjoyable and may I add profitable. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Red Eye
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 06:37 PM

If all the Irish in N Ire take from the Brit Gov for the next hundred yrs it would still never repay what the english took out of Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 07:13 PM

Err ! What did the Brit's take out of Ireland, apart from abuse ?

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 09:48 PM

Gareth:
The fact that you do not know the value of respect for the rights of the people of Ireland and the lives of her children show that you have not given the matter much thought. Think of an Irish army on your streets, breaking in your door in the middle of the night, pulling your sister out of bed, hitting your father in the face with a rifle but, and taking you off to be tortured through the best part of two weeks. The child next door whose brains were blown out by a soldier for revenge for his fallen comrads, the denial of a nations history... Emagine yourself in the shoes of another and you may understand what was taken out of Ireland.
Yours, in peace, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Red Eye
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 07:29 AM

Gareth, your's is a typical comment from a race who have always been the occupier never the occupied.

Armoured cars, tanks and guns,
Came to take away our sons,
But every man must stand behind,
The men behind the wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 09:14 AM

Larry I have given this much thought over the years.

Chrs
" Not for them a judge or jury,
Not for them a trial at all,
Being 'Brit's' Means we're guilty,
So we're guilty one and all !"

"Journalists, and armchair patriots, ,
Sitting by the tele set,
Many miles away from the troubles,
Blaming ould Brittania yet!"

"Sitting in a bar in Boston,
Many miles from the 'Falls,
Sings away the Irish 'patriot',
Safe away from Derry's walls."

"Or perhaps a bar in Dublin, >
Here the 'crack' runs so fast,
If the pints were cheap as others dieing,
Ould Ireland united yet at last"

"But don't forget the real ambition,
Ould Ireland free is just a means,
While we are making money,
Drugs, protection and other sceens"

It seems to me that Irish history is the only occasion when History is written by the loosers.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 11:16 AM

Gareth, If you need a loan give me a shout, or you could even tap some of your Labour MP friends who get fools like you to do do their canvassing and when elected give themselves a pay rise when they feel like it. and it ain`t 3%. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 01:13 PM

Forget the history books - the real history is in the songs. And the songs tend to be written by the people the history books call the losers.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 07:31 AM

My dear Gareth: I for one, did not learn about Ireland sitting in bars in Boston, but with a camera as a journalist in Belfast in the mid seventies, then before law school, as a paralegal, I had the great honnor to work for the lawyers who served Joe Doherty, in a case which proved beyond a shaddow of doupt, the fact that the war in Ireland was not the one sided act of ungrateful terrorism which you allege in your post here. In the end, Joe was "deported" to Britain, after the courts refused extradition, when all the combined legal might of England and the USA could not convince a host of federal judges that the IRA was a terrorist organization or that Britain was protecting democratic government in the occupied northern counties. So, no, my standard is not the bar stool, but the federal courts. The fact that again and again in this post you attack the poster and not the facts, shows the historic arrogence of your government in the face of the terrible things which have been done in your name.
I hope we have a chance some time, to all get together here, have a pint (mine a cranberry and soda...) and get to know each other past the steriotypes and create some understanding, not continue the ad homminum attacks.
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 07:41 PM

Oi Larry - Not in this thread, or any other have I said that this is one sided.

I do attack those who say it is. - Of any persusion or biggotry

You may not have seen matters from a bar stool - There are plenty on the Mudcat who do ! And who glorrify in death and destruction.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 04:37 AM

"And who glorify in death and destruction", the one-eyed account of a true bigot, Gareth you backed the two Bs in death and destruction in Iraq. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 06:49 PM

No Butty - I backed the removal of a murdering regime.

Unlike your self.

Gareth

Yes - In my name

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Jimmy C
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:12 AM

Have been reading with interest all the postings to this thread, happy to see ard mhacha still in fine form, especially in light of the Tyrone victory on Sunday, I'm sure he does not feel too bad as Sam is at least in Ulster.
Back to the topic, this is for Gareth, - there are many arguments for and against what you and what Ard Mhacha have both posted, there is however one statement that cannot be denied and that is that the island of Ireland was divided against the wishes of the vast majority of Irish people. The province of Ulster was divided also against the majority of ulster people, divided in such a way to guarantee a loyalist majority. A bigoted, unjust society was permitted to run rampant for the last 80 years, all with the blessing of the Westminister Government. These are facts. My point is that if I occupy some place that I do not own, I expect to pay rent. Please don't consider any pensions, health benefits, unemployment benefits etc, made to Irish people as some sort of gift from britain, just consider them as part of the rent.

Slan

Jimmy C.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 06:28 AM

Jimmy C, You`ve never lost it, Gareth is an expert on the wee six and I bet he never set foot on Irsh soil, unlike the uniformed football thugs that came over here to make our life a misery.
Poor oul Gareth believes they were all disciplined lads who obeyed all of the rules relating to an Army of occupation, trouble is they did all the bloody rules were kicks up the cobblers for the local nationalists.
And Jimmy C, don`t mention Sunday, now I know what it`s like to be a Welsh Rugby fan. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 06:56 AM

Two new relevant books on related matters have just been published in Belfast by Beyond the Pale Publications, for details see their website.

1. "A Very British Jihad: Collusion, Conspiracy and Cover-Up in Northern Ireland"; by Paul Larkin.

2. "An Army with Banners: the Real Face of Orangeism"; by William Brown.
I haven't read this book yet but it was written by a former, now anti-Orangeman.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 07:22 AM

Larry,

Two of your postings above mystify me somewhat:

InOBU - 26 Sep 03 - 09:48 PM & InOBU - 29 Sep 03 - 07:31 AM

In the first - "Think of an Irish army on your streets, breaking in your door in the middle of the night, pulling your sister out of bed, hitting your father in the face with a rifle but, and taking you off to be tortured through the best part of two weeks."

No need to think about it, Larry, there was such an army on our streets, doing just the things you said, the only diference being that after the period of torture, the person who had been lifted never came back alive - and on occasion no body returned to their families to receive a proper burial - That Army, Larry was the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Ard continues to rant about uniformed football thugs, "Bloody Sunday" is one of his pet subjects, he does not seem to be so concerned about the 87 murders carried out on the orders of Martin McGuiness during his time as commander of the PIRA in Derry - no calls for an inquiry there AM.

In your second post, you refer to your time as a photographic journalist spent in the North of Ireland during the seventies - Being there in such a role, you must have covered, and possibly experienced, the effects of the PIRA's indiscriminate bombing campaign - but - no mention, no outright condemnation - gallant freedom fighter perspective, is that what you left the US to prove?? - utter bullshit - a crowd of completely unrepresentative and unelected terrorists acting against the wishes of the vast majority of people in the whole of Ireland - the all Ireland referendum that took place at the same time as the North's referendum on the Good Friday Agreement proved that conclusively.

As for knowing, "the value of respect for the rights of the people of Ireland and the lives of her children" That's another one both you and AM should take up with the paramilitary groups - whose ranks and commanders never once in the entire sorry episode referred to as "The Troubles" ever gave a tuppenny-damn about the, "rights of the people of Ireland and the lives of her children".

McGrath of Harlow - 27 Sep 03 - 01:13 PM

"Forget the history books - the real history is in the songs. And the songs tend to be written by the people the history books call the losers."

You are joking of course. What songs written and sung at the time gives a view from one perspective - that is how you would advise someone to study history? I sincerely hope not.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 08:35 AM

Hi Tiberius and Gareth and all...
I did not find that there was an indiscriminant bombing campain, not to justify bombings of any sort. In point of fact, in historic retroview, the Rebublican movement did what England and NATO wanted them to do, carry on a war in responce to agression and human rights violations, in order that NATO forces could remain on the shore of a non-NATO nation until after the fall of the Warsaw Pact, which, oddly enough, the same year as that fall, secret negotiations for the end of that war begin, but to return to the origional point of the sentence, idescriminant is when a jet drops a bomb on a market place with multiple anti personel warheads, such as the fragment bomb droped in Bahgdad the other day. In point of fact, other than a very few glaring examples, the vast majority of the acts of war of the Provisional IRA where within the internationaly accepted articals of war, unlike the anti civilian actions of the British Army and the MI 6 directed Loyalist murder squads. If you don't accept my facts, being that until very recently your press was censored on these facts - and in fact BBC did a very good job recently of reporting on the fact that MI 6 DID in fact direct the loyalist hit squads and are responcible for programatic killings of civilians... the fact is that a non-biased history of this conflict can be found in court records in the US, where we had the advantage of being able (until the patriot act) to put our government and our alies governments on trial when the charge of terrorist was used in extradition hearings.
So, as I have said before on Mudcat, Joe Doherty was brought before an American federal court judge, Sprizzo, who at the first hearing said, "you mean I can't send this murdering son of a bitch back to Britain..." concluded the several months of hearings with this case presents the political exeption to extradition in its most perfect form." In order to reach that conclution, he and the judges who followed in the many appeals and who agreed with him, wieghed the contention of the British Government that the IRA was a terrorist orgainization, and found that they DID NOT target civilians as a targets in their struggle. On the other hand the SAS did.
Now, the out come of this trial, was the Att Gen Meese began the program which led eventualy to the Patriot Act. The executive branch of government wanted to remove from the courts the power to determine on the facts, whether an organization is or is not a terrorist group, so that people could be charged with giving material support to terrorism on the contention of a political branch of government, without being able to challenge the underlieing contentions of the executive branch. In this way, the lack of understanding of what was happening in Ireland, by the average people of the US and Britain, has led to a loss of very basic rights here.
This also answers the most recent post from Gareth. The fact that you believe you were invaded by Ireland not only flys in the face of the facts, but shows that you have as little personal understanding of what it was to live in Belfast in, say, the seventies, then most Americans did of what it was like to live in Viet Nam under the US invation or what it is to be an anti Sadamist in occupied Iraq today. Paul Wolfawitz was confronted by a student two days ago at a New School press conference, where in answer to the contention that your army and mine, is killing one thousand people a day, said it was an acceptable price to over throw Sadam. God help us.
All the best
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 10:55 AM

What I mean is, the real history consists of the stories that are remembered long after. How far they correspond to the facts is a secondary matter - the stories are the things that tend to shape how people behave.

Pretty obviously in saying "your streets" Larry was referring to the streets in the kind of place where Gareth, with whom he was arguing, lives. The IRA did all kinds of unpleasant things, but they were never an army of occupation in a foreign country, which was what was being discussed.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:02 PM

..., but after all is said and done though, it would seem that Gerath, and all the rest of the population of England need worry more about the threat of Al Qaeda, than anything else. First Eurasia, then Eastasia!
One door closes, another opens, eh?

Comes from getting into peoples' faces on a regular basis.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 03:50 PM

True enough Brendy, note how much of Scandinavia sleeps well at night? Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 12:19 AM

Well we are in N.A.T.O.-land, Larry.
But N.A.T.O. isn't defending the territory it used to defend anymore, and along with that, it isn't the threat it used to be. And anyway..., who would want to bomb the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, and The Oslo Accord?
Which all bodes well for our beloved Norn Iron, incidentally, as it isn't as important anymore in the wider scheme of things, and can be cut loose with as minimum loss of face as possible.

I would have thought that Greath and all his butties would be jumping for joy at the prospect.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 03:47 AM

Brendy,

In answer to your question:

"who would want to bomb the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, and The Oslo Accord?"

Al-Qaeda - they specifically mentioned that Norway was to be considered a target.

Larry,

A number of points -

England does not have a government - The United Kingdom does, and has had since 1707.

NATO bases in Ireland? - are you refering to agreements between the Irish Government and the US that allow transit rights through Shannon Airport? Please provide a list of the NATO bases you refer to and where they are located. The Royal Navy had, repeat HAD, a base in Derry that had one specific role, it was used as the base for the Londonderry Squadron whose task was training ASW Officers and for submarine work-ups in the Clyde Exercise areas - It could only be realistically described as a NATO base in the event of war. Aldergrove Airport - unsuitable as an NATO base because it was also the main civilian airport serving the North of Ireland.

I would think that setting 24 car bombs to go off within a two hour period (one bomb every 6 minutes) in the heart of a major city during the hours of daylight would qualify as being indiscriminate.

The casualty and fatality statistics for Northern Ireland clearly indicate that Republican actions are responsible for the vast majority of those casualties and fatalities. Remember, they used to phone in and claim responsibility after each attack - I am so pleased to hear that those injured and killed were legitimate targets under the articles of war - that fact should be passed on to their children, relatives and loved ones, I am sure it will make them feel better.

As to understanding what it was like to live in Belfast during the seventies - I believe that the people of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Guildford, had a pretty good idea.

When you speak of the Republican movement it should be remembered that the Official IRA saw that there was no part for them to play in Northern Ireland - they rightly concluded that the british Government were effectively taking steps to redress the imbalances after taking over direct control and disbanding the B-Specials. Some within it's ranks thought otherwise - hence the formation of the Provisional IRA, INLA. This has recently been repeated once the Good Friday Agreement came into being - hard-liners within the ranks of the PIRA splintered into such factions as the Real IRA, Continuity IRA. Does the American Legal system regard the Omagh bombing as a legitimate attack according to the articles of war?

UK aggression - Larry give me just one name of a member of any paramilitary group in Northern Ireland who gave his life to save the life of a civilian. I can furnish you with quite a list from the ranks of AM's uniformed football thugs who did, and of others who continually faced that risk protecting the general population.

I am of the opinion that with most journalists, they have their stories written long before they leave their offices, I do not believe that you are/were any different - you went there to provide evidence to support either your point of view, or the point of view of those who sent you.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 05:37 AM

That war's over. A bit of time for reflection is more what's needed than carrying on play fights.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 06:06 AM

Pleased to hear that Kevin:

"McGrath of Harlow - 02 Oct 03 - 05:37 AM

That war's over. A bit of time for reflection is more what's needed than carrying on play fights."

As to that war being over - I have yet to hear that clear and unequivocal statement being made by ANY of the paramilitary groups involved. When that is done and it has been verified that they have ALL disarmed and disbanded, then your statement may be believed.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 08:20 AM

The war is over... because the war has been won, and that's what basically galls everybody. It has been won because England has lost, end of story. And nobody has to declare anything over, anyway.
If you read the first line of my post, Teribus, you will see that I readily admit Norway to be a target.
I'll tell you this, though. I fancy my chances a bit better over here than in one of England's major cities, watching a guy in a cinema or a restaurant turn and smile at me just before he screams 'Allah Akbar'.
You never had to deal with suicide bombers before, and I truly hope you never will, but if you thought you had a hard time during the IRA's campaign, I would look around and see what potentially the scenario could be.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 09:00 AM

.
Now tell me that the little blue area just west of Scotland isn't part of it.

One of the main selling points of the British involvement in Iraq (once the war was over), was how they learned their trade in winning the hearts and minds of the people, by the training they got in that little blue area.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 09:03 AM

... sorry HTML code screwed up...
First line was....Here's N.A.T.O.>.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 10:27 AM

Brendy:
That is a paranormal phenominon, like the moving statues of Knock, which created the miracle of an international airport withing spitting distance of Shannon, which God wanted built so that God's people could keep doing buiseness as usual if NATO needed to land planes in Ireland on the way to fight Russian tanks crossing into Germany, or as the book of revelations predicted (just kidding for all you about to flame me) when Russia fell and the US decided the new Evil Empire lived in the middle east, and NATO planes landed in Ireland on their way to bomb the Gulf, some nuetrality. As you know, Blue, is St. Patrick's color, and so, the little blue patch is St. Patricks miter on the head of our dear little bear, not, coincidentaly, an idication that Ireland's nuetrality ends at the boarder.
Slan go foil,
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 11:26 AM

The British Army hasn't disbanded either or decomissioned its weapons. That doesn't mean it's still engaged in fighting a war in Ireland.

Mind the official line in Whitehall and Westminster was always that there wasn't a war in any case. So there's no war to begin with - but until the other side says it's over, it's still on - except that there's never been a war... Which demonstrates that the kind of logic sometimes disparagingly referred to as "a bit Irish" is rather more widespread than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:05 PM

All you say is true, Larry.
Who would respect the 'border' if push came to shove?

There is also this, almost, Tom Clancyish idea abroad of what a N.A.T.O. base is, though.

F all of YI, a N.A.T.O. base could be (but would not be limited to) a garden shed at the bottom of an otherwise normal looking street!
It (like any other 'base') is a place where soldiers come from, and go to.
It does not need to house neuclear weapons, have submarine bays, or any of that kind of public demonstration of might.

Covert ops, me bhoys. Sure didn't they learn all they know from over my neck of the woods?
(that question was a rhetorical one)

And of course Kevin makes the salient point that there never was a war in the first place
Didn't 10 hunger strikers die trying to claim that there was?
(That question wasn't rhetorical, incidentally)

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 04:17 PM

Sorry i`m late ,I was counting my money, Big Tim refers to two books on the north, the book on collusion by Paul Larkin will come as a shock to all of those naive people who believe we are living in a democracy.
Larkin points out that collusion has been ongoing from the time the Brits arrived here.
Well worth a read if you want to educate yourself on the last of the Brits colonial wars. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 04:31 PM

ALSO! While you have your reading glasses on, dig up the McGill artical and the papers about the suit that McGill won, about how Finna Foil funded and engeneered the split in the Republican community by buying the arms for the then northern IRA if they would split with Cathal Goulding in the south, as they could not convince the Irish people to abondon nuetrality and their own freedom was indanger by the struggle to creat a wholely independant and nuetral single state at a time when the CIA was destablizing all nations which attempted to resist being forced into NATO.
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 05:17 PM

Paul Larkins many TV programmes exposed the Brits as being in collusion with the Loyalists from their first few months on the streets.
Larkins book will incorperate all of his TV scripts. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 07:07 PM

Thats the problem with the Tory's privatisation - Contracting out the Mmurder squads to the private sector never works.

Now if we Brits had left the job to the Army ?????

Gareth

More follows, when the bait's been taken !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 08:36 PM

Ach, sure, If you had last year's snow, you could play snowballs.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 05:13 AM

"Paul Larkins many TV programmes exposed the Brits as being in collusion with the Loyalists from their first few months on the streets."

That's rather odd - That was about the time I did my first tour there, during the time that the B-Specials were disarmed and disbanded. From the Nationalist side we had absolutely nothing to fear, in those days it was the Loyalists who posed the greatest threat to the police, army, fire and ambulance services. Thanks for letting me know that they were actually on "our side" all the time - certainly didn't look that way on the ground.

The little blue area to the west of Scotland, on the map of showing NATO countries, is part of the United Kingdom. As the United Kingdom is part of NATO, any map showing NATO countries will show the United Kingdom in its entirety. My question to Larry was prompted by his statement:

"In point of fact, in historic retroview, the Rebublican movement did what England and NATO wanted them to do, carry on a war in responce to agression and human rights violations, in order that NATO forces could remain on the shore of a non-NATO nation until after the fall of the Warsaw Pact, which, oddly enough, the same year as that fall, secret negotiations for the end of that war begin,"

"...in order that NATO forces could remain on the shore of a non-NATO nation..."

As far as I am aware no NATO forces have ever been deployed in Ireland, North, or South, on any pretext associated with what the Republican movement did or didn't do. Larry also contends that Shannon was used by US Air Force bombers on their way to bomb targets in the Gulf:

"and NATO planes landed in Ireland on their way to bomb the Gulf," - I would dearly like some substantive evidence of that. I do know that there was some discussion relating to US Transport aircraft using Shannon, but nothing about combat aircraft, the B-52's incidently used RAF Fairford - no need for them to use Shannon, or Knock for that matter. There are no NATO bases in Ireland, the deal regarding Shannon is a bi-lateral agreement between the US Government and the Irish Government and has been in existence for many, many years, certainly way before 1969.

As for the remainder - "...until after the fall of the Warsaw Pact, which, oddly enough, the same year as that fall, secret negotiations for the end of that war begin," Larry, there have been secret negotiations going on to end the conflict in Northern Ireland from way before the collapse of Soviet Russia and the fall of the Warsaw Pact. The timing you impart such importance to was purely coincidental. Winning, or losing, the PIRA had been fought to a standstill, it was a stalemate, not my words or my opinion - that was the evaluation put on the situation immediately prior to the GFA by Martin McGuiness.

By the by, something I meant to say by way of comment to the thread - for those who wish it any excuse for a good party is good enough. I hope they all had great time.

On the escape itself someone on the thread stated that there were still three escapees unaccounted for. I do hope that they surface soon - once heard a very convincing conspiracy theory regarding this escape, which can only be blown to bits when those three show their faces.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 07:15 AM

As someone who still lives in 'the north' i find a lot of this conversation futile. So someone done a tour here , so someone took photos here, well i was born and lived here al my days. I was brought up in a village outside the main troublespots where i was fortunate enough to have experienced a tolerant and open town where people generally speaking got along with it. Paramilitaries do scare me - but so do the 'security forces' here. I'm sorry teribus but my own experiences when i moved to Belfast taught me to fear them, the ones from England etc weren't the worst either- it was those from here with leanings toward unionism that joined up. Some of these people were truly terrifying and i will never to this day understand how it is considered acceptable to point your gun at peoples heads as they are walking past from a bus stop. Sorry - but this did happen - to myself and numerous others every day for a Long time. No matter what the rights or wrongs the state did collude and has behaved very badly in the matter of ireland for countless years- no one denies this here   on either side.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 07:38 AM

Teribus:
I am surprised you did not see the copious articals reguarding American planes landing in Ireland to refuel. One of my favorite political cartoons was a mother and child watching the US bombers land at Shannon and the kid is asking, "Let me get this nuetrality thing straight, Mom, if Saddam wants his planes to land here on the way to bomb New York, that is ok also? It was in the Irish Times, I believe.
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 08:15 AM

From to-days Irish News,
Dectectives from the Stevens team have returned to northern Ireland in recent weeks to carry out more investigations into security force collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries.

The officers from the team are interviewing a number of people including former RUC Dective Johnston Brown who in recent years has claimed that innocent people were allowed to die to protect informers within loyalist paramilitary groups.

Sir John Stevens said " I have uncovered enough evidence to lead me to believe that the murders of Patrick Finucane and Brian Lambert could have been prevented. Stevens went on to say " I conclude there was collusion in both murders and the circumstances surrounding them, this ranges from the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the witholding of intelligence and evidence through to the extreme of agents being involved in murders".

Last night former CID Detective Johnston Brown said," If people think that the Stevens team is finished they are wrong, The investigators seem more determined than ever.".

Stevens can understand now, after years of probing, how difficult all of the other English Detectives found the wall of silence put up by the RUC and Stormont Unionists so hard to penetrate, for years they had the freedom provided by British Governments to run the six counties as they choose.

Johnston Brown disgusted by his former RUC colleagues, gave Stevens the information on the collusion that was going on within the RUC rank and file.
Brown after giving the evidence was eventually hounded out of the RUC, this was due to threats from his fellow RUC men. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 09:42 AM

Well Larry, we are getting there slowly but surely, US bombers are now US aircraft. Going through air movement logs for Shannon will show that the US military flights refuelling at Shannon are troop transports mostly in chartered civilian aircraft, military transport aircraft C-130's, tanker aircraft KC-135's, Gulfstream COD aircraft and aircraft from USN's Logistics Wing. The cartoon might be one of your favourites, but please don't intimate that what it portrays is fact.

GUEST 03 Oct 03 - 07:15 AM:
The gun pointing thing is routine, I don't know if you have watched coverage of current US foot patrols in Baghdad, you most certainly will have seen members of the UK forces on foot patrol.

Standard practice is to carry the weapon across the body with the barrel pointed downwards, but at any given time a certain number of the members of the patrol will have their weapons raised and trained as they cover their arc of responsibility.

The difference between the UK and US patrols that I have seen on news coverage is that at no time do you ever see a member of a US patrol walking backwards, their visual coverage of the area being patrolled appears to be extremely haphazard. Within your own experience in the North of Ireland, while encountering security forces patrols may have been frightening, they were ten times less likely to kill you than any paramilitary organisation.

As to the state behaving badly in the matter of Ireland for countless years - please don't be so restrictive, historically, a number of states have behaved badly in the matter of Ireland for countless years. Those states promised much and delivered little, they aggitated and promoted unrest, knowing full well what the English and latterly the British response would be. Their dividend was that Britain would have to send troops to Ireland that would otherwise have been used against themselves - have you ever wondered why rebellions in both Scotland and in Ireland have coincided with European conflicts involving Britain, France and Spain.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 10:19 AM

Teribus
I state again - i have lived here all my life- you're experienced as a soldier here for a tour- sorry but had you stayed around for another few years you might have witnessed the more aggressive tactics used by many of your colleagues, this varied from the gun pointing thing - routine? not when the gun constantly follows your head as you walk past, to being spreadeagled against a wall every Sunday on the way to college with a gun trained on you. It doesn't wash with me. I don't trust any people who carry guns i'm afraid.
Many of these young lads were bullies- i remember trying to get to my younger brothers deathbed as he lay in the royal hospital and being prevented by them. I have never - repeat never been involvved in any crap before but i did experience behaviour that can only be described as bullying from quite a few soldiers. I missed his death and i regret that since.
Restrictive - maybe its hard not be restrictive when you're brought up here, i don't think i'm hardline, but then your own views seem quite restricted as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 10:40 AM

"...As far as I am aware no NATO forces have ever been deployed in Ireland..."
Well then, don't state it as fact. And don't write long-winded nonesense about that which you know nothing of.

One tour, eh?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Teribus.

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 11:16 AM

... or let me put it another way.

Anybody following the news, nowadays, is getting bombarded with all sorts of reports about dirty dealings, and the supression of information.
Look at The Hutton Inquiry, for example.
Look at the recent CIA report coming out of America.

All of these investigations are spending YOUR tax money to get to the bottom of allegations about the spreading of misinformation, and subsequent cover-ups.

What in heaven makes you think that a place which was a home-based training ground for the British Army, wasn't shared with other members of the Alliance. They go to Norway to learn to Ski.
And they went to The north of Ireland to learn 'counter-terrorism' techniques.

That would seem normal practice in any other 'theatre' (God... they described that properly, anyway). What's the problem with accepting (given everything else that has been uncovered) the fact that certain other N.A.T.O. member states had their wee oar in there too?
After all, it's no skin off your nose what the other nations do. You certainly dont have to defend anything here.

I saw the B52s come into Shannon during Bush the Elder's reign, and thousands protested this time around as well.
When the talk was about extending the runway at Knock "to accommodate 747's", everybody sat up and took notice.
Knock? 747's?

Yeah right!

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 04:53 PM

Collusion in the north of Ireland, yeah right!, very bloody right. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 05:54 PM

"The gun pointing thing is routine"

How very reassuring that is.

The funny thing is, quite often when I go to Stansted Airport, which is close to where I pive, there are armed poliice on patrol there, especially when there's been some flap. It's a bit disconcerting at furst, but no big deal. But never have I seen any of them pointing their guns at people's head. The "gun pointing thing" is not routine, it's unnecessary and counter-productive. And it would not be tolerated on the mainland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 05:21 AM

What mainland are you referring to McGrath, the continent of Europe.
No Irish nationalist would ever use that term to describe Britain, we leave that to the Unionists who don`t know wether they are Irish, British, or Normans.
The pointing of guns at the people here was no big deal, we were subjected to a lot worse than that, for instance shoved up a wall, and being dug in the ribs with the butt of a rifle, while the uniformed thugs had their daily amusement.
This was nothing compared to what some of the people suffered, having your home pulled apart by Brits who cared for neither the aged or the female members of the household, this usually took place at 6am, Teribus can confirm this.

And Gareth the man with all of the answers whose knowledge of Ireland consists of a trip or two to see Wales play at Lansdowne Road .

There is a hell of a lot more stories to come out of here and they will be a lot more harrowing than the Long Kesh escapees fete. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 11:12 AM

Stories like these ?? Click Here

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 11:15 AM

Let's pretend that the only NATO planes to land in Ireland where troop transports... Brownie troops on their way to sell cookies in Dublin? No, US soldiers going to committee murder in a nation which did not threaten us, in an unprovoked war which it is now christal clear to all but the die hard Bush supporters (note I do not say Republicans and many Republicans feel lied to as well...) a war begun on a pack of lies which is costing the lives of thousands of Iraqi people and hundreds of US and British soldiers. As I said, some nuetrality.
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 11:30 AM

Where you live makes a difference as to what terminology is appropriate, Ard Macha. In Ireland it's got a political implication in this context, which the term wouldn't have when used of Ireland in the context of, say the Aran Islands.

I was using it in a geographical sense, to mean the island otherwise known as Britain, or Great Britain, thus excluding the chunk of Ireland which is currently still politcally associated with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 01:08 PM

McGrath this terminology only came into effect within the last 20 years, the only people who use it here are the Unionists. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 01:27 PM

In Ireland that's true, but not this side of the water, where it's traditionally been used in relation to all the other islands in the archipelago, including the Isle of Man, which has never at any time been part of "the United Kingdom", let alone of "Britain". So far as I'm aware the term isn't generally used over here with any political implication.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 01:35 PM

But the point I was makinmg is, they'd never dare to try to get away with some of the stuff they've done in Ireland back here - which is a clear confirmation of the fact that very few people over here really think of Northern Ireland as being part of the same country, whatever the rhetoric or the constitutional niceties.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 01:50 PM

I heard it used in, of all things, a discussion on Rugby, one of the panel an English pundit after referring to Ireland then said "This would also apply to the mainland" he was immediately confronted by the Irish pundit, who asked "which mainland are you referring to.".
As you say he was completely unaware that he had transgressed, but the term as used here by the Unionists is meant as a slight towards the Nationalists.

On collusion, I refer you to the Irelands Own Site, this is a comprehensive study of collusion. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 01:55 PM

Precisely - it means connotations over here, geographical rather than political.

Am I right in assuming that in the Channel Islands, if they speak of the mainland, they'd be meaning France rather than Great Britain?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 05:54 PM

Precisely - it has different connotations over here, geographical rather than political.

Am I right in assuming that in the Channel Islands, if they speak of the mainland, they'd be meaning France rather than Great Britain?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 06:10 AM

Brendy,

I believe I wrote, "That was about the time I did my first tour there,"

Where did you get - "One tour, eh?" - then prattle on about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing?

Of which, a multi-national force was proposed by the British in the early seventies, consisting of US, Canadian and others from NATO - All declined and the idea was shelved.

Who are the "They's" Brendy re skiing and anti-terrorist training?

45 Commando of the Royal Marines and certain specialist branches of the UK's armed forces use training facilities in Norway for winter ans Arctic warfare training (not merely just to ski) purely because the UK cannot guarantee the climate to carry-out this training realistically - very few other NATO members use those facilities.

I stated that as far as I was aware no NATO troops have ever been deployed in Ireland North or South - you and Larry said otherwise - if that is the case then provide some details - by the way just to make sure we are talking about the same thing a troop deployment would be where NATO troops took over/replaced British troops in the "Aid to Civil Power role", that would require some quite significant numbers - tell me when that has happened.

MGOH,

The armed police patrols at Stanstead Airport are not the same thing as a foot patrol when military forces are acting in support of the civil power, those patrols are also always accompanied by police officers.

Your statement - "The "gun pointing thing" is not routine, it's unnecessary and counter-productive. And it would not be tolerated on the mainland." - comes from where? Or is it purely your opinion? If it is the latter then please state so. Judging on some of the things you say with regard to the military, it is obvious that you have neither served, nor experienced that training at first hand, I on the other hand have - I certainly did not see any training manual, or exercise brief written with the name Kevin McGrath appended to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 05:27 PM

I can't see why the fact that guns are in the hands of police officers rather than soldiers should imply a significant difference in where they are pointed.

If there's a training manual which advises soldiers to point guns at the heads of passing civilians, it'd be useful to know about that. After all, it's better, if that really is the case, that people know it's official policy, and not just the soldier involved doing it off his own bat.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 07:05 PM

Mmmm ! Not that many years ago I had, in my proffesional capacity, to visit a form of frieght forwarders at Heathrow.

Now we had a good working with this firm, who to put it quite incorrectly were Jewish/Israeli, and very informal. IE no suit, Collar an Tie.

Result, as I had to be in Barry (nr Cardiff)early on the Monday, I suggested that I could call in en-route from Whitstable, Kent, to South Wales on the Sunday Morning.

Bad call !!. The Army was out in force, wether a training excercise, or the real thing I do not know.

So there I am driving into the "Cargo Village" at Heathrow, stopped by the Army at the checkpoint into the "El Al" area.

"State your business"

"Well, I'am from the XXXX Insurance Co to see ....

That was it

"Insurance Co - On a Sunday Morning ? - Wearing Jeans and a Tee Shirt ? -- and a full beard ???"

A sound of Cocking of guns, "Out and down"

Until a rep of the Frieght forwarders came to vouch for me.

But I've no complaints. - Unlike others whose knowledge of Wales seems to be confined to trips to the ferry whilst drunk, en route to Eire.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 07:15 PM

Well, you can't really blame them for Gareth. The same way, when I was off to Ireland for my father's funeral, in a most unlikely looking dark suit and a bushy beard, I wasn't too surprised when they picked me out to have a body search.

But your real terrorists on an operation would generally look neat and clean and well advised.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 07:55 PM

"a troop deployment would be where NATO troops took over/replaced British troops in the "Aid to Civil Power role",,,,"

Would it now?

Somebody else said 'one tour', Teribus; I didn't read all of what you had to say, all the time.
(Thought you were waffling for most of it, really).
You obviously didn't complete enough tours, or were high enough up the information chain on the ones you did complete, to be able to comment authoritively on the matter.

But the bottom line is, as you well can appreciate, (I would say 'know', but that might be working on too many assumptions on my part... again) that people, places and things will be all brought out into the open, when and if the old Truth & Reconciliation Commission ever gets up and running.

Look at the inroads being made at this moment in time, into collusion and all such other nasty things.
It's like pulling teeth, Teribus!

You and I both want the truth; the document, the e-mail, that will implicate so-and-so in X, Y, and Z.
Well I do, anyway

But experience at street level; at the lonely check-point on the country road, at 4 in the morning when they're breaking your door down, you often spotted the out of place student at the back who's mentally taking notes.

And 'They' is 'They', Teribus.
And they were there!
And, sure, why not?

It's not as if there was any Geneva Convention governing anybody's actions, after all.
There was no war, remember.
Gave quite a lot of people carte blanche to do whatever the hell they liked, in actual fact. I mightn't need facts to support this, Teribus, as I'm sure your experience in the north of Ireland could at least bear me out on that one.
Good to be King, wasn't it?

Yeah, well imagine that to the power of a couple of hundred megaton, Teribus.

You'll be in the proper ball-park then.

I'm off for a few weeks, folks; Denmark, again! ;-), so I wont be around for a bit.
In the meantime, Here's a wee site for you.
It has to be one of the definitive sites on the 'Conflict', and it helps put a few things into perspective, especially for the 'un-initiated'

Love & Peace, y'all

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 08:50 PM

.... found this....

Clickety Click...

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Oct 03 - 03:36 AM

Kevin,

You say that you, "...can't see why the fact that guns are in the hands of police officers rather than soldiers should imply a significant difference in where they are pointed."

On your way through Stanstead Airport did you you notice any of those hilarious fake road signs stating "Sniper at Work"?

The armed Police Officers present at the airport are there to provide a passive, deterrent presence. Police Officers and Soldiers on foot patrol provide an active, deterrent presence in areas that contain a known threat. That is the significant difference.

Gareth's story about his Sunday morning trip to the cargo area at Heathrow, and, more importantly, his reaction to that experience, I would think, reflect the reaction of most members of the general public. They realise that those soldiers were there to protect the general public, not to harass, or intimidate them. So much for your contention that such behaviour would not be tolerated on "the mainland".

Back to "the gun pointing thing". While on patrol, as previously explained, certain members of the patrol will be at immediate readiness to fire. Normally he will sweep his specific arc of responsibility, while other members of the patrol keep an all round look-out. Should any of those keeping look-out notice anything out of place or suspicious, they will call that to the man at instant readiness responsible for that sector and he will follow that "target" until such time as it passes out of his arc of responsibility. It is a Standard Operating Procedure, Kevin, nothing more - It is also very effective.

On terrorists on operations you are perfectly right:

"But your real terrorists on an operation would generally look neat and clean and well advised."

Just like those hero's of the Provisional IRA, who (according to Larry's American Judges, only conduct operations in accordance with the articles of war, and who do not wage war on civilians) travelled to that shopping Mall in Warrington in 1993, planted two bombs in order to kill a four year boy and injure fifty others. Wonder when the "Sean South" type song about that particular exploit will come out, to sung in the bars of Boston?

On Brendy's bottom line: "...that people, places and things will be all brought out into the open, when and if the old Truth & Reconciliation Commission ever gets up and running."

It should be remembered by all that that is a two way process, while the Saville Inquiry looks into "Bloody Sunday", The PIRA and it's Derry Commander will be asked to explain the 87 murders he was responsible for sanctioning, the whereabouts of those abducted, tortured and executed. But that is a long way off.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Brendy
Date: 09 Oct 03 - 07:47 AM

What will you be asked to explain, Teribus?

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Oct 03 - 09:08 AM

From an earlier post from Ard Mhacha:

"The pointing of guns at the people here was no big deal, we were subjected to a lot worse than that, for instance shoved up a wall, and being dug in the ribs with the butt of a rifle, while the uniformed thugs had their daily amusement.
This was nothing compared to what some of the people suffered, having your home pulled apart by Brits who cared for neither the aged or the female members of the household,..."

So - It's only the Brits who care for neither the aged or the female members of a household Ard Mhacha? Read on and deny all you damn well like, but the leaders of the organisation you seem to admire so much have admitted responsibility for it:

An Account: PROVO "Disappeared" victim Jean McConville

The 31-year torment of the family came to a head a month ago when widow and mother-of-ten Jean's remains were found at Shelling Hill Beach, Carlingford, Co Louth. The family gathered at the Co Louth site and when Helen Jean McConville's daughter) discovered a bullet in the back of the head had killed Jean she suffered acute distress She had difficulty breathing and fell severe chest pains. Jean's remains were taken to England for forensic tests and to compare DNA samples taken from Helen to prove the identity of the skeleton.

Helen was later told by a policeman of her mum's tortured final hours. IRA torturers had chopped off Jean's fingers to make her admit she was an informer. Then Jean, kneeling before a cowardly thug, was killed with a bullet in the back of the head.

Helen's husband Sean, a founder of the Families Of The Disappeared pressure group, said: "We have been told the digits on one hand were missing. We will have to wait until the inquest to tell for sure how mutilated her body was".

Provos shamed for the senseless and cowardly murder have owned up to murdering nine of The Disappeared. Four of those have been found, but it is believed there are at least six others the IRA dealt with.
The nine were kidnapped, tortured and maimed, and buried in shallow graves in out-of-the-way places.

The Disappeared from the Seventies and Eighties came back to haunt Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams during the height of the peace process in the mid-Nineties. He met Helen and Sean McKendry and denied all knowledge of The Disappeared. Only after US president Bill Clinton intervened did the IRA admit its Belfast Brigade was responsible for Jean McConville's disappearance. The Provos had always lied that she was an informer who had run off with a British soldier and was in England.

Helen's real 'crime', her family believe, was to tend a dying soldier hit by an IRA sniper's bullet outside her home in the Divis Flats complex in the Lower Fails. A neighbour said she put a pillow under his head (the soldier's) and whispered a prayer in his ear. That act of Christian charity was as good as a death sentence.

On December 6, 1972, a gang of thugs sent a false message into a social club where she was playing bingo that Helen had been knocked down by a car. Jean, who was barely 5ft, was lured outside, pounced on by IRA hoodlums and interrogated, abused and battered. Police later found her wandering barefoot on a bitterly cold night.

The following night she suffered another dose of mob rule. A gang of 12 masked Provos — eight men and four women - burst into her home and dragged her from the bathroom. She was bundled screaming into a car as some of her children watched. It was the last picture of their mum they have in their minds. The terrified mother, still in pain from the previous night's savagery, was tortured and finally forced to kneel. She was murdered with a single shot.

In January, 1973, a man delivered Jean's purse to her home with three of her four rings. Police said it was the Provo message that she would not be seen again. Members of the McConville family know the identities of several of the gang of 12 that dragged their mother away. They pulled off their balaclavas as the children watched the terrible scene. Helen said: "I know at least three of those in the gang who abducted my mother. One lived nearby. "I came face to face with one of the women in Belfast city centre one day but she never told me what she knew '

A funeral mass is booked for October 16 at St Mary's Church in Chapel Lane Belfast, where Jean was a regular worshipper with her brood.
St Mary's Church is also the place where the first memorial service was held following the creation of Families Of The Disappeared in 1996. A go-between told the family the IRA felt it wouldn't be in their interest to hold a large funeral. Jean's children accused the terror chiefs of being embarrassed by the murder and plan a huge funeral to which the world's media will be invited. Seamus McKendry, author of a book on The Disappeared, said: "We want the world to know what the IRA did."

Feel like another song coming on Larry?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Oct 03 - 10:40 AM

To answer your question Brendy:

"What will you be asked to explain, Teribus?"

Oh, lots and lots, Brendy - if they ever get round to it, which I would very much doubt - mostly stuff to do with 126's, cigarette coupons and a rather bad scorch mark on the piece of carpet in my billet.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 10 Oct 03 - 07:45 AM

Hi Teribus:
This has been a a very busy week for me, so I will try to get back to this and answer more completely, but as I am getting ready to run out the door, I will just acknowlege reading the posts for the past few days. I will be very interested in seeing how further enquiries proceed. The question of wounded British soldiers was addressed in the Doherty hearing, and it was on the record that the IRA had a policy of not killing wounded souldiers, not the same is true of the SAS as you may recall the killing of three unarmed volunteers and the commitment of a sane wittness to an mental institution when she described the killings in front of her house, where an SAS operative - foot on the chest of a wounded Maried Ferrel, emptied his gun into her head.
In the environment of war, people become hardened and do unthinkable things. The British government chose as a policy, war to deal with the justifiable civil rights demands of the Irish people. In the end, I feel that British people have shirked the responciblity of learning the politics behind your government's actions in much the same way as the people of the US have ignored the lessons of our unjust war on the people of Viet Nam.
As to NATO troops, I did not mean that the troops on the streets of the northern counties of Ireland are international NATO troops, but ARE part of a programatic stratigic underimining of unalined nations rights - in order to use Ireland if needed (as it has been) as a bridge in the US incursions into - what was proposed would be defence of Eastern Europe, and became unprovoked war in the middle east.
It may surprise you that I seldom sing Republican songs in pubs. There is much to much evil being done with my tax money in the US to keep me singing about the present destruction of Iraq and the ecconomic future of the US at the same time by the less than qualified occupant of the White House.
I hope there comes a time when you, Tiberius, can meet with former IRA volunteers, as I am sure they and you would benifit towards healing by listening to each other. I assure you I am listening and acknowlege if the facts you pose in the killing of Jean are in deed a war crime and should be addressed as the killers of Mary Kelly, shot in the head by a British soldier at close range should be addressed. I am not big on prosicutions, I don't believe in retributive law, but in order for healing to happen the truth has to out.
All the best, peace
(Have a good trip Brendy!)
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 10 Oct 03 - 11:07 AM

Larry,

where do you read those fairytales of the IRA not killing wounded soldiers? Read for instance one of the many accounts how the soldiers Derek Wood and David Howes died and you'll know that what you have written is not in general true.

And, please, even if it is an extra effort for you, check your spelling of names. I have no problems at all with your spelling in normal text (so don't bother with that), but with names I sometimes like to check in other sources and for that I need the correct spelling. Maried Ferrel must mean Mairead Farrell, I'm confident, but who is 'Mary Kelly'. Such a name is not in any of the lists of deaths in Northern Ireland that are available to me. 'Mary Kelly' is, however an Irish victim of Jack the Ripper. But you wouldn't blame the British Army for that murder, would you?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Oct 03 - 02:55 PM

Yes Larry, please! Which soldier was ever allowed to live that fell into the care of any Republican paramilitary?
The unarmed volunteers you mentioned were an operational unit that had a car bomb that had not then been found and was likely to have been remotely controlled.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 10 Oct 03 - 04:07 PM

Thanks Teribus.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 10 Oct 03 - 07:15 PM

I am away for the weekend, Carol Anne Kelly, I believe, if memory serves... gotta run. see ya in a few... Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 03 - 04:52 AM

Enjoy your weekend Larry.
You and I have discussed this before.
Reminder, the active service unit were planning to explode a large bomb at a band concert in Gibralter. It was an army band, but army bandsmen are purely ceremonial and the audience mostly civillian.

Their object then was to commit mass murder in order to further their political aims.

We do not have the death penalty here even for such evil people, hence there were plenty of them to murder their way out of prison.

Active Service Units usually go armed. These were not when aprehended, but if you were the arresting officer how careful would you be?

I don't know how it works where you are, but here the security forces are not involved in hospital admission policy for psychiatric or any other care.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 11 Oct 03 - 05:35 AM

Thanks, Larry,

yes, that name did help me: Carol Ann Kelly (11) was killed in May, 1981, by a plastic bullet fired by British soldiers in, what is described in 'Lost Lives' as 'disputed circumstances'.
Soldiers: "there was rioting in the area"
locals: "it was quiet at that time"
coroner: "the child was an innocent victim, returning home with a carton of milk"

(Alas, she is by far not the only innocent victim of misguided fire or bombs; all parties involved have killed children in their actions)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 03 - 04:53 PM

Keith, you say "hence there were plenty of them to murder their way out of prison." If this refers to the death of a prison warder in 1983, I believe that charges of murder were dropped against the escapees on the ground that the warder's death could not be put down to the breakout.

Gareth, it's useful at last to get an insight into where you forage for you information. I notice that your link above includes a link to the loyalist ideological education website" and is unusual in describing the deaths of soldiers on active service as a massacre.

I've not been paying attention to this thread for a while, but some time ago you asked Ard Mhacha if he accepts British benefits. Surely this question harks back to the days when the north had wonderful roads while those in the south were full of potholes. The days when layalists thought they could count on catholics to vote for continued partition rather than throw in their lot with the impoverished republic. Wake up Gareth - the world has moved on. Ireland has caught up, and it has managed to do so without having to plunder the human and other indigenous resources of other countries. (From even right-wing historians like Corelli Barnett you can learn that Britain has paid its way in only 20-30 of the years since the mid-19th century.

Teribus: when precisely did you do that first tour, and where were you based? It would be intersting to know how many other tours you did, and who with, as difrerent regiments had different styles and had different experiences.

That was certainly an unedifying episode involving Jean McConville. I can think of others (Captain Nairac comes to mind), and Wolfgang has reminded us of one of the worst. It's what comes of paramilitarism, however disciplined and idealogical such gangs consider themselves to be. What I cannot stomach is when a democracy allows its security forces, with apparent inpunity, to behave as crassly.

I remember (for instance) police in London surrounding a mini-car with 17 vehicles, and when the mini stopped at traffic lights, they shot its innocent driver repeatedly. For good measure they then thrashed his head with a pistol when he fell out into the road. Thanks to their stupendous incompetence he actually survived. His offence? They had mistaken him for a man wanted for killing a cop.

Several times in Northern Ireland, soldiers opened fire when under no threat whatsoever. I don't consider it acceptable for state forces to behave like this. You may remember, Teribus, the murder of Joe McCann in Joy Street, in April 1972. Perhaps it happened on your watch, in which case do tell us why it had not been necessary to confirm the man's identity before opening fire? (This in the case of a man notorious for changing his appearance almost daily.) I expect the deaths of some paras a few days earlier had nothing to do with it.

I don't have much sympathy for the victims, Keith, but that doesn't alter the fact that the deaths on the rock were an outrage, and rightly caused the UK and its army much embarrassment for a long time afterwards. More to the point, it fuelled a counter-reaction.

You will have noted the comments Sir John Stevens made about the deaths of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson (they have been quoted above I think). And you may recall that even as Stevens undertook his inquiry into police complicity, his office was mysteriously burnt out with the loss of many files. (But then he had been unwise enough to have his office in a place as insecure as Carrickfergus RUC barracks.)

I said in a Mudcat thread a year or two ago that Stevens' work was a turning point in the British establishment position, and marked a marked contrast with the appointment of John Stalker to do a similar job in respect of earlier deaths. Putting Stalker up against John Hermon was like sending a lamb to the slaughter. Stevens is of a different calibre (and is now the UK's most senior cop). Putting him on the case paved the way for disbandment of the RUC - and I for one think it is high time that Sinn Fein tok its seat at the table in terms of managing the new Police Service of Northern Ireland. (No earthly reason why not if Brendy is right that the war is won.)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 11 Oct 03 - 07:15 PM

Actually Anon Guest - (or it it Fionn ?) My sources are very widespread.

If as a counter balence I quote the "loyalist side" hy complain

Whay you and others have missed is that noe the British establishment is investigating and reported on matter.

The Terrorists of either side have not.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 03 - 08:30 PM

Alternatively: "Some of the people who employed some of the terrorists have seen it as a good idea to distance themselves from things that were done by their agents. On both sides."

There's a fallacy that identifies "terrorism" exclusively with anything that is done by certain "terrorist organisations". The truth is more complicated. Generally speaking in any conflict, whether in conventional war or in what is these days sometimes referred to as "asymmetric warfare", some of the things done on either sides are properly described as "terrorism", and some are not.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 04:37 AM

We could go back 400 years, or more, saying "ah, but what about The Ulster Plantation, what about the Portadown massacre of Protestants (1641), what about Cromwell, what about the Penal Laws, what about the Famine: ad infinitum". We certainly shouldn't forget these events: they are part of the history of Ireland. But they are done and cannot be undone.

The only relevant question now, I think, is whether or not you support political violence, be it Republican or Loyalist. I don't: I think that it's 1. immoral, and 2. counterproductive. The only thing that's gonna work in the long run is reconciliation and the sooner we all get started going down that road, the better for all concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 02:25 PM

What about Celtic 7 Rangers 1, League Cup Final 1965, now that was a massacre Tim. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 03:04 PM

Billy McPhail!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 03:07 PM

Of "the 7-1 game" is just a tangent, yet another one.

Where, Ard, do you stand on modern political violence?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Fionn, sans cookie
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 04:07 PM

Yes, Gareth, the anon post of 4.53pm 11 October was mine. Only just realised my cookie's gone. Thanks for looking out for me - nice to know you care.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 12 Oct 03 - 06:32 PM

Fine - now what is your beef about my ULR - Other than it exposes certain matters that would be embarrasing ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:01 AM

Tim and Co, published in to-days press are some home truths on the state of the "sick six".
Research carried out by the University of Ulster and Queens University reveals that "poverty in Northern Ireland is worse than either the Republic of Ireland or Great Britain which are two of the most unequal socities in Europe".


The research revealed that," well over one third of the norths children are growing up in poor households, over two thirds of lone parents live in poverty,."

Catholics are 1.4 times as likely as Protestants to live in poor households.

Fourty-three per cent of Sinn Fein supporters live in poverty, as against 19 per cent of those who support the Unionists.

These figures along with many others from the research leads Professor Hillyard to state that,"This study provides the first ever measure of consensual poverty and the results are staggering,
more than 185,000 are poor and over half a million people live in poor households.

Following the research the authors concluded that," Northern Ireland is one of the most unequal socities in the developed world".

Why didn`t they come to me and I could have saved them all of that work, after all I live here. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:03 AM

Do you know Tim, there is the material there for another song. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:24 AM

Gareth,

when reading the pages following your link I can't help but feeling that these pages are not meant for recociliation but to further hatred from one particular point of view. 'Scum', 'vermin', 'thugs' is not the language I prefer when talking about what happened in Northern Ireland. The details may, in general, be correct, the slant of those pages is hardly palatable for me.

There have been well over 3000 killed by now resulting from 'the troubles'. Most of them, by far, are civilians, i.e. not members of a paramilitary organisation or of the security forces in the broadest sense. Among those killings, there are some that look more gruesome to us, like the death of a little child or a death not by a bullet, but after prolonged torture.

It is easy, too easy sadly, to make a long list of the worst killings selectively for each group, republican or loyalist paramilitaries or even the security forces. The sad game, for-each-cruelty-you-tell-me-I-can-tell-you-two-from-your-side, could go on for longer than the longest thread in Mudcat history.

When those with republican leanings stop telling only about loyalist and security forces crimes and those with other leanings stop telling only about republican crimes then I think the road to lasting peace has been gone a bit further. The outrage about cruelties from 'the other side' goes down better with me if it is accompanied by at least embarrassment about the cruelties from 'our side'.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:37 AM

Wolfgang:
I concure with your last statement about owning up to attrocities on both sides, as a Quaker, I never condone violence as a responce, one winds up doing precisely what the aggressor wants when you respond violently, HOWEVER..., that does not mean that there is not such a thing as overall responcibility which British posters overlook in this. For example, it was wrong wrong wrong, for members of the Jewish underground to seek to poison the German water supply in the aftermath - closing days, of the Nazi era. Does this mitagate the culpability of the Nazi party? Not at all. Britain clearly opressed the Irish people for centuries and to this day, many shirk the responcibility for making good on that history.
Cheers
(Back and well rested... for those visiting the US, GO to New Hope PA... great place to unwind!)
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:16 PM

Wolfgang - Your have a fair and valid point on common hatreds. I am happy to have puut that ULR as a reminder that the Republican movement is not as civilized as some would wish to paint it.

What a pity it is that money that could have been spent on the elimination of Poverty has been squandered on security matters in the last 35 years.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:32 PM

Long before the present troubles the six counties was a poverty stricken area,
It was always completely ignored by the Britsh Government, widespread discrimination and gerrymandering was rife,while the Nationalists kept their nose to the ground and remained peaceful that suited the London rulers, and nothing was done for this fag-end of the British Empire.
The only movement there has been towards correcting the poverty and unemployment here was made when the EC came into force, so Gareth we are better off now than we were before the present conflict. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:53 PM

If you go to BBC NI Newsline you can read of that report on poverty. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:15 PM

Ard M - I did, at College this afternoon, yer beat me to the posting though !

Incidently was'nt Sien Fain antiu EEC in 74 ???

I was, but I've learn't better.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:41 AM

The Shinners may have been against going in to the EC but that dosen`t alter the fact that we have progressed more than we did when the Unionists were in complete control.
Can you imagine what it was like here during their long period of office, now if someone had researched the "sick six" then the present Study would have seemed like "Paradise found". Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:07 AM

Dear Friends:
There is a bottom line which is being avoided in this discussion, which is that wars are never fought by modern industrialized nations for the reasons stated, or the apparent reasons. The war in Ireland was no more a responce to a nationalist movement than the war in Iraq is a responce to terrorism. Big nations lie. That is the begining of an understanding, and a end to the arguement that you can respond militarily to the provocations of the US and Britain. What is to be done about these to agressive and dangerous nations is another matter. One needs find a better way than violence to convince the voters in these "democracies" that it is not in their people's interests to make war on small nations. I put democracy in quotes as the majority of the British people wanted out of N.I., and yet, by overt control of the press in Britain, and corporate control of the press here, true democracy is undermined by control of information, and in the end, a small ecconmicly empowered class are able to lead us by the nose into wars where the working people of both our nations kill the poor of other nations. It is a vile system from which all the rest of this, mentioned above, flows.
All the best, in peace
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:56 AM

Larry, you talk such awful nonense, I do wonder why I waste my time replying. However, here goes.                     

In political terms, the only "majority" that matters is the unionists of NI. After 30 odd years of conflict, it's now been agreed that the constitutuional position of NI will only be changed if the majority in NI so decide. Prior to 1969, most people in the Republic would have have argued that the decision should be made on an all-Ireland basis, which would have resulted in immediate re-unification. Now, 94.4 % in the Republic have voted for an NI -only decision. The conflict, the so-called "freedom struggle", has in fact set back the cause of Irish unity, of which I am a supporter, and strengthened the position of the union. So, the conflict, as well as being a travesty of human rights, by both sides, has been, from a republican perspective, also counterproductive.

The position of NI is now the same as that of Scotland, Wales and England: any can have independence if the majority of the people living there so decide, which seems fair enough. And very wrong, if the majority don't have the chance to express their opinion in a free vote.

How would you fancy the US joining in a political union with, say Canada or Mexico, if, say, 20% of the population took up arms and imposed their will on the majority?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:07 AM

Sorry Gareth, I couldn't work out what ULR meant. From your later post I realise you meant URL, by which time Wolfgang had dealt with the point more effectively than I would have done.

Larry, I don't see much point being judgemental about that episode at the end of WW2, nor many another in the heat of war. European Judaism had been brought to the brink of extinction, and I don't think we can begin to understand the mindset of what Jewish resistance remained. They certainly had some reason to believe that civilian indifference to their fate, extending far beyond the Nazis, had helped nurture the conditions for the genocide. (And "indifference" is probably too kind a word for the depth of prejudice that was then widespread.)

You're nearly in agreement with Wolfgang, Larry. Why not go that last mile? For me, he says it all.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:59 PM

Well, I think the last mile is to presupose bad intentions on the part of Irish Republicans. Fact is I have know them well and many of them, and can't say I mistrust their intentions, rather, like Wolfgang I think many of the choices that were made, in hindsight are not well chosen, I agree with your above comment, that knowing folks who were in the camps one understands the anger that led to a Jewish underground choosing to murder inocents, but the murder of inocents is still murder. War, though, I always stand aside from, however, the Irish Republican Army was no more guilty of committing to war than Britan, just their intentions where better than Whitehall streets,I have found, in general Irish Republicans to be more truthful about their reasons to fight than the British government. But that is the case throughout. There was no ambiguity to the Veit Cong reason for fighting. This is also where I depart from Wolfgang.
Cheers
Larry
Oh Big Tim... as to majorities, most of the time, the northern majority was only maintained by forcing the majority of nationalists out of the north through state terrorism and inforced poverty, so one cant say 1969 is really the time when there is a majority in favor of a partitioned Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 02:11 PM

Oh Larry...I was wasting my time.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:15 PM

Tim, Remember I live here, and your comments would never find favour with the Nationalists people, do you deny the facts in this recent Research by the learned Professors from Queens and the Ulster University?.

Did you find support for your comments during your book signing in the Rossa GAA Club,? according to most of your comments the Unionists with their built-in magority seemed to earn your favour.

I have heard of "leaning over backways to be fair", but you are the original rubber boned man. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:45 PM

Well Fionn If you can't work it out then I, and most 'Catters, must have grave doubts about your intelligence.

I have no doubt there will be an "Anon" post supporting your point of view. And if you are caught out and indentified, no doubt you will "appologise" for yer cookie crumbling.

Wolfgang put a good point - from your previous post this was not your point.

Still nobody could accuse you of trying to be objective.

Eamon McCaans book on the "Civil Rights Movement" is interesting, particullaly the Ambush by the "B" Specials at Burntollet.

As you, on other threads, claim to have been there I will be interested to read your narrative of events.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:53 PM

Burntollet. I was on that one. You're not suggesting we attacked ourselves, are you Gareth?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:13 PM

Actually it wasn't that obvious. ULR could easily have been one of those Ulster Acronyms - Ulster Loyalist Resistance or something like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:17 PM

Kevin - my God no - I leave that sort of accusation to the "good ole boys" in the Southern States.(See Phil Ochs)

I would be interested, PM me if neccessary, in your narrative.

For I am afraid that my inate support for Civil Rights in Ulster is rapidly being revued in view of posts here and in other threads.

And your word, Kevin, that you were involved, I would take without question.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:24 PM

Funny thing, notice that folks who support the British possition question the intelect of those who disagree with them? Funny thing... proveably also easy to counter... not as easy as pulling appart this sad history eh? Much more easy to say the other fellow isn't as smart as you. Fact is I have known a lot of intelligent, very intelligent British supporters of their government, our brother here, Richard Bridge is one of them, who always kept his discussions well argued and polite. He also had the good graces to READ the decisions in Doherty, for example, rather than just doubting the intellect of those to whom he was speaking (writing)...
Ah well...
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:34 PM

Larry - Wolfgang and other were intelligent enough to spot my transpositions.

Fionn said he was not. Now he either was, and is being economical with the truth, or he was unable to spot it. In view of his past performance I leave you to form your own oppinion.

QED ???

BTW I do not support the historical British position. and can you define that ??

I do not, and will not support the attitude that the problems in Ulster are entirly the fault of us Brits.

I will ask you a question. Have you faith in the American legal system ????

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:21 PM

The legal system, no. The courts, more than the law. The courts have been so fair that the legislation has bound the hands of US judges, taking more and more of their discretion away. The executive branch of government removed the political exemption to extradition after the Doherty case, the first steps towards the "Patriot Act" which now takes away from the American people the right to defend themselves against charges of terrorism by proving the politicalized definition of what is terrorism - classicly the targeting of civilians as a direct ojective of war, where now it means any class of people labled so by the US attourney general... give me the courts any day... I have great faith in the people and in many judges, but, give me a jury any day. Jury's are so dangerous to tyrany, that they were removed from the North Irish legal system when it came to political offences, the crown didn't even trust loyalist majority jurries ... tell you alot.
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 06:57 AM

Larry, the "British position" on NI is neutral. Have you read the Belfast Agreement? If the people of NI voted for reunification tomorrow, they would have it the day after, and Britain would be happy with that. As it is, they have to support the wishes of the people of NI. Even Sinn Fein now accept that, and indeed have done since about 1982.

Ard, it's not that I support the unionists: it's simply that I recognise the political reality, i.e, there are more of them than nationalists.

Of course the "learned professors" are right. It's blindingly obvious.
Incidentally, last time I was in Belfast, in August, I stayed in the home of one of them for four nights. One of them told me that in her opinion, Catholics will form a majority in NI in about fifteen years. They will then vote for reunification.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:56 AM

Alas, too late for this oul codger. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 08:03 AM

Big Tim:
Of course they will and Britain will support them for the same reason that the same year that the USSR became history was the same year that Irish neutrality became history, the political/military reason for maintaining a foothold in Ireland, to force Ireland to comply with NATO plans - if the US felt it nessisary, no longer exist. In this new world the loyalists are the out group and the nationalists are becoming the in group and when Britan writes its history, it will and is saying, yes mistakes were made, but we wanted peace all along, and it will be as much a lie as two hundred years of US history. Ask ten Americans what Shays Rebellion was about, I often do, and more than 9 out of 10 have never heard of the war that killed the largest persent of out population of any other war, and set in place the US ecconomic ruling class... history, we are seeing George Bush attempting to make an end run around the US news, by telling the people don't judge our success in Iraq by focusing on the death and destruction, listen to me not the news we are doing well... he does not say how we are doing well, this is how nations write their history, ignore the facts and we are doing fine.
Cheers,
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 08:04 AM

PS... If Britan finds some strategic need to stop reunification, do you not believe they will find another mechanism to subvert it?
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:09 PM

Ard: I hope not; some old Fenians of 1867 saw the Republic established in 1949. Re the Rossa Evening: read what Jim Gibney (he was sitting in the front row) wrote about it in Republican News, it's online.

Larry: re your final point: no, absolutely not. They wouldn't want to, and even if they did they couldn't resist the will, and moral force, of the people: just as they couldn't in 1922.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 02:45 PM

I think if there was a real and present prospect of breaking the link with Northern Ireland, and a British Government tried to go back on it, all hell would break out - among the non-Irish population of Britain.

If they'd ever dared to put it to the vote over here, there'd have been withdrawal many many years ago. In fact I very much doubt if there'd have been Partition in the first place, or an Act of Union in for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 03:36 PM

What I do not worry about is people celebrating such events as the maze escape, full power to their elbow.

Will the courtesy be extended to those who celebrate the 12th,triumphalism, is what nat/rep whinge about when the mad men in the OO decide to walk the Queens Highway.

The two events are nothing but exercises in rubbing each others nose in it, where will this hypocrisy stop.

Why does everyone assume because you are Catholic that a boom in that part of the population will lead to a voting of a united Ireland, these people are not born yet and are already segregated. One of the causes which gave N.Ireland its problems in the past.

In fifteen years time there is no guarantee that this so called voting majority will come about. If we have fifteen years of normality who knows people may well opt to keep the status quo.

Maybe because of this uncertainty some see this as a reason to keep the pot stirred, keep the blood boiling, think of little ideas to remember us of the bad old days.

Only problem is both sides can play at this game and what does that get us?

With regards to saying that the people in England would vote to get rid of N.Ireland, what difference does that make? considering that the same would be said for separation from Scotland and Wales. The reason they are not given this vote is simple, it would break up the Union.

The preventing of terrorists on both sides doing their dirt should be celebrated, what is better than celebrating the saving of innocent lives.