Monday, September 26, 2005

The Bullet and the Ballot Box.


It is reassuring to learn that the brave soldiers of the Provisional IRA have finally seen fit to dispose of their vast arsenal of weaponry and explosives. Their bravery tended to manifest itself in knocking on doors and shooting people in their carpet slippers. Bombing a war memorial on Remembrance Sunday was also an act of conspicuous courage.

A thirty year campaign of sectarian carnage and murder may not have achieved their ultimate goals, but it went a long way towards forcing a spineless government to accede to many of their demands.

I would be more reassured by their act of disarmament if this was to be accompanied by dissolution of their vast criminal empire. Sinn Fein has become the best funded political party in Europe through extortion, protection rackets, and robbery. This criminality is the source of their power to outspend conventional political parties, and to concentrate their activities in attempting to subvert democracy in the Irish Republic.

Sinn Fein/IRA has never been particularly interested in democratic values: they are fundamentally a blood and soil nationalist movement, regarding themselves as the only true repository of the values of Irish Republicanism.

Tony Blair is naturally delighted by the news of disarmament. If he feels ‘the hand of history on my shoulders’ this time, it will hopefully be directing him towards the political oblivion and ignominy which he so richly deserves.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm. I listened to this on the news and to be honest, I don't nkow whether to believe it, or not.

When they state that they've completely destroyed or made unusable their entire armoury, does that include EVERY handgun, set of knuckle-dusters, knee-capping equipment too?

Or am I just being cynical?

Oh and I take it the other lot, the loyalists, will be following suit later this week? No. Thought not.

Sniffy said...

Hear hear, Garfer. I don't trust those bastards in the IRA one bit. They should never be forgiven for what they did. For this bunch of grinning murderers to be given the credibility of a political party is absolutely sickening. They're laughing at Britain.

garfer said...

The loyalist paramilitaries are a pain in the arse. Fuck knows who they think they're being loyal to.
Ultimately they're just hoodlums.

garfer said...

If they gould bring themselves to apologise they might be a bit more credible.

Sniffy said...

They're all a bunch of crooks. No different to the "insurgents" in Iraq. No different to idiots who pick up any scumbag cause (e.g. let's get the Asians in Oldham because the BNP told us to) as an excuse to be a violent, criminal tosser. The IRA were just seemingly organised and very trecherous, with the backing of Noraid and Ronald McDonald to fund their activities.

Rowan said...

hmm, wish I had something to add, but I don't :( I know next to nothing of UK politics.

garfer said...

You lot had something similar. It was called the FLQ!

pissoff said...

I was in Enniskillen in September of 1987.

I have a hard time believing that they destroyed their entire armoury. Bollocks I say.

Aginoth said...

Now if only the other Republicans and the Loyalist/Unionist Paramilitaries would disarm as well !

Anonymous said...

"I don't trust those bastards in the IRA one bit."

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

garfer said...

Hello Blogspot.
I agree entirely with Ghandi, although I don't think he would have advocated holding out the hand of friendship to someone holding a gun to his head.
Friendship requires trust. Trust has to be earned. Thus spakes the Garfer.

Anonymous said...

From Wikipedia:

In 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by the armed forces of Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people:

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them". (Non-Violence in Peace and War)

garfer said...

Pacifism is an understandable moral position to hold, and should be respected. I went to a Quaker school, so I know where the tradition of non violence originates.
Ghandi's advice is naive nonsense. There can be such a thing as a just war. WWII was exactly that.

Anonymous said...

You may consider Ghandi advice naive when he suggested that we lay down our lives and be slaughtered. But is it better to die for a cause or die for a cause after killing as many of your enemies as possible? Seriously? In the end you're still dead, and when you're dead how many new enemies have you left behind to continue the killing?

Sniffy said...

Depends on the enemy. The Nazis could NOT have been allowed to carry on.

garfer said...

'Lay down our lives and be slaughtered'. No ta.
I quite like 'Bring your daughter to the slaughter' by Iron maiden though.
I am broadly pacifistic in outlook, but I do think that the use of force can sometimes be justified. Contradictions. I'm a mass of them.

Anonymous said...

I'd agree with that.

Anonymous said...

Wot she said.

S.I.D. said...

Don't start me on the politics of NI.
Living in this sectarian little shit hole is enough to put you to an early grave and for my friends and relatives on both sides,thats exactly what it has done.

Whats Canada like?

garfer said...

Fucking freezing, and full of THE ROCK lovers. Train gone round the bend.

S.I.D. said...

Fuck I forgot.Forget it.