Ballymurphy Massacre Inquest

[Max Power]

1 hour ago, Rog said:

That is simply wrong. The terrorists were escalating their attacks against the British people of Ulster and had been for some time.  The infamous ball game that saw the score Paras 11 IRA nil was the inevitable result of the attack against the FB's in an ongoing reply to the American funded attacks against British people.  I well remember that rotten bitch Bernadette Devlin being the rabble rouser that kicked off the resurgence of Fenian attacks against the legitimate government. I also remember the Belfast Oxford Street bus station bombing and the immediate aftermath.  I should, I was there.  I only wish I could forget the things that I saw.  Very good at attacking civilians were the Fenian bastards.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse there Rog, I was of exactly the same opinion as you until recently, knowing people who were involved and finally watching the documentary. The whole thing began with Catholics asking for civil rights and organising marches. The more extreme protestants began attacking them and also began burning them out of their homes. The army were sent in to keep the peace which was appreciated by the Catholic side. The IRA started jumping on the bandwagon, despite not being particularly well organised. The British Government over reacted and began internment without any need for evidence, further giving the Catholics something to be aggrieved about. They then sent in the Paras who treated them as they did the Mau Mau. They could have kept a lid on this by changing the law in NI to give equality and installing a peace keeping role, not a death squad. 

[Rog]

6 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think you're putting the cart before the horse there Rog, I was of exactly the same opinion as you until recently, knowing people who were involved and finally watching the documentary. The whole thing began with Catholics asking for civil rights and organising marches. The more extreme protestants began attacking them and also began burning them out of their homes. The army were sent in to keep the peace which was appreciated by the Catholic side. The IRA started jumping on the bandwagon, despite not being particularly well organised. The British Government over reacted and began internment without any need for evidence, further giving the Catholics something to be aggrieved about. They then sent in the Paras who treated them as they did the Mau Mau. They could have kept a lid on this by changing the law in NI to give equality and installing a peace keeping role, not a death squad. 

There has been trouble between the Republicans and the British people of Ulster ever since partition. The trigger point was the Divis Flats when the bitch Devlin kicked off a traitorous uprising that was not unreasonably opposed by the vast majority of Protestant loyalists. The Fenians were beaten back and the British army went in to protect the traitors.  The traitors then used the army as virtual human shields to escalate the attacks against the British loyalists. Just as in Israel there is never any peace unless the opposition is totally (and ideally) utterly subdued, ideally it would be permanently.

[Bobbie Bobster]

2 minutes ago, Rog said:

trouble trigger point bitch loyalists Fenians beaten traitors human shields totally (and ideally) utterly subdued

[Freggyragh]

How strange. Rog is better known on these threads for his hatred of British soldiers and love of terrorism. Seems the only people he hates more than the British and the Manx are the Irish. It was only a few months ago he wrote this:

The King David attack in itself was fully justified because the British had installed a military installation within the HD, a war crime in itself.

[the stinking enigma]

A little background. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius

[Rog]

10 hours ago, Freggyragh said:

How strange. Rog is better known on these threads for his hatred of British soldiers and love of terrorism. Seems the only people he hates more than the British and the Manx are the Irish. It was only a few months ago he wrote this:

The King David attack in itself was fully justified because the British had installed a military installation within the HD, a war crime in itself.

Silly little boy.  I don't hate the British soldiers, I loath terrorists, I don't hate the indigenous British, I pity most Manx people trapped on the island, and when it comes to the Eire-ish my detestation is for the terrorists and their supporters.  As for the KD attack I absolutely stand by what I wrote. 

[manxman1980]

13 hours ago, wrighty said:

Interesting Max - never heard of this until reading your post. 

I don’t have ‘a dog in this fight’, but I would say that Rog’s and Fatshaft’s exchanges aren’t helpful. 

I remember David Trimble on the radio years ago saying the Irish conflict was nothing about religion, simply that Catholic vs Protestant were surrogates for Irish (natives) vs British (invaders).  Hope to learn more about it in this thread, if it can be kept from descending into crap. 

The "troubles" go back a very long way when land in Ulster was given to colonists from Scotland and England.  If I recall correctly the colonists were Presbyterian Scots and the English were from the Church of England. 

You therefore get the start of the complex picture of religion v religion and natives v invaders which has obviously become blurred over time. 

[Max Power]

3 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

The "troubles" go back a very long way when land in Ulster was given to colonists from Scotland and England.  If I recall correctly the colonists were Presbyterian Scots and the English were from the Church of England. 

You therefore get the start of the complex picture of religion v religion and natives v invaders which has obviously become blurred over time. 

Yes and it would be have been very easy and convenient to wash our hands of it on that basis if there were not innocent human lives being lost on an almost daily basis. 

I remember my dad and my uncles telling me about how the Catholics were shut out of employment and forced to live in Catholic areas which were sometimes very deprived. In their area, Catholics and Protestants lived together in harmony but there was always an underlying resentment on both sides. The neglect of their situation, followed by demonstrations and ultimately violence against them, caused the IRA and those herded into ghettos to rise up with bloody terrible consequences for many. It still bubbles beneath the surface and it seems that the British Government still don't understand why?

  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-ireland-karen-bradley-secretary-nationalists-unionists-sinn-fein-dup-elections-a8526466.html   

[manxman1980]

9 minutes ago, Max Power said:

Yes and it would be have been very easy and convenient to wash our hands of it on that basis if there were not innocent human lives being lost on an almost daily basis.    

Please don't take my post the wrong way.  I was not intending to excuse anyone of blame.  The whole situation in Northern Ireland had been a terrible and bloody affair.

In these modern times it is easy to forget the root of the "troubles" and not only that but over the centuries the picture has changed.  No longer is it the Irish Catholic against the Scottish or English Protestants/Presbyterians who had been given the land.  We now have generations born into the "troubles" with families torn apart over their beliefs.

I hope that the Good Friday Agreement somehow survives Brexit and that we can move away from the violence of the past.  I hope that future generations will no longer have to live through what your family did.

[Max Power]

53 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

Please don't take my post the wrong way.  I was not intending to excuse anyone of blame.  The whole situation in Northern Ireland had been a terrible and bloody affair.

In these modern times it is easy to forget the root of the "troubles" and not only that but over the centuries the picture has changed.  No longer is it the Irish Catholic against the Scottish or English Protestants/Presbyterians who had been given the land.  We now have generations born into the "troubles" with families torn apart over their beliefs.

I hope that the Good Friday Agreement somehow survives Brexit and that we can move away from the violence of the past.  I hope that future generations will no longer have to live through what your family did.

Apologies, I wasn't suggesting you were excusing blame or anything, just that the inactivity of government and then it's downright disregard for their own subjects allowed the 'troubles' to reignite. They should have been building bridges immediately after Northern Ireland was formed.

[P.K.]

20 hours ago, Max Power said:

Having strong Northern Irish Protestant connections, I was absolutely horrified to watch the programme on Channel 4 on Saturday night about the actions of British Troops in August 1971. It seems that at that time, the British Government began internment of IRA suspects in the wake of civil rights marches by Catholics who had been subjected to extreme provocation by Protestant groups. The IRA was pretty much an impotent force at the time and had in fact been accused of cowardice for not protecting those who were being burned out of their homes. 

The Army decided that the Ballymurphy estate was a leading IRA stronghold and began clearing it out, placing it under siege. In fact any IRA members had left the area days before, knowing about the purge in advance. They brought in 600 members of One Para under Brigadier Kitson, a known expert in dealing with insurgents in Kenya. In the programme he admitted using unsavoury tactics and doing things which are beyond the pale in dealing with troublesome natives.

To cut a very long story short, over three days, the Paras murdered 11 innocent people, including a priest waving a white handkerchief trying to help a wounded man, and many others were severely beaten, for being residents of Ballamurphy. This was exactly the kind of thing that one of the victims had fought against the Nazis, losing a hand, to wipe out. The Paras press officer, Capt. Mike Jackson, later General Sir Mike Jackson, fed lie after lie to the press to cover this up, insisting that they were fighting a running gun battle over three days with about 20 IRA gunmen. No evidence of this, not even a spent cartridge, was ever found. 

A few months later, One Para were sent to Londonderry to police a civil rights march one Sunday. They and the British Government were the cause of almost all of the thirty years of death and destruction. They created the upsurge of the IRA and UVF and gave idiots on both sides a cause to fight for. They manipulated British public opinion and are a disgrace to this country.

"The Army decided that the Ballymurphy estate was a leading IRA stronghold"

Don't think so. After all "Military Intelligence" is one of the best known oxymorons on the planet. They would have been briefed by the largely protestant RUC. Not difficult to believe they would have had their own agenda now is it?

To cut a very long story short troops are not trained to be policemen. They are trained to move fast and aggressively against any perceived threat. That's right. It doesn't matter if it won't stand up to investigation. What matters is looking out for your own people and going in hard and fast to get the job done.

I think the Bloody Sunday incident was bound to happen eventually. The simple facts of the matter are that the IRA opened fire on the troops. They responded. The result was chaos. But if anyone is to blame it's those who fired first.....

The irony and tragedy of it all is that the planks were sent in to protect the Catholics from the Protestants. The IRA played the "English Invaders" card for all they were worth and it ended up the planks dealing with terrorists from both sides! But the Catholics had been unfairly treated for years and the NI and British governments just didn't do anything about it...

[Max Power]

2 hours ago, P.K. said:

I think the Bloody Sunday incident was bound to happen eventually. The simple facts of the matter are that the IRA opened fire on the troops. They responded. The result was chaos. But if anyone is to blame it's those who fired first.....

The irony and tragedy of it all is that the planks were sent in to protect the Catholics from the Protestants. The IRA played the "English Invaders" card for all they were worth and it ended up the planks dealing with terrorists from both sides! But the Catholics had been unfairly treated for years and the NI and British governments just didn't do anything about it...

Amazing that they never learned any lessons from the Dublin Easter Rising really, making martyrs of people only makes things escalate.

[the stinking enigma]

They are very well aware of that.

[Max Power]

Well they are now.

[P.K.]

On 9/11/2018 at 6:21 PM, Max Power said:

Well they are now.

Making martyrs out of murderous thugs.

Sums the place up really. Well, sums the people up anyway.....