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Old 09-10-2016, 07:35 PM   #52
tom8517
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If you have a problem with the IRA, look no further than your own government. The IRA in 1969 was a spent force, the border campaign of the '50s had been a dismal failure. Most of the IRA was moving towards doctrinaire Marxism, the few remaining who advocated violence were old men singing " A Nation Once Again" until they had enough Guiness to fall off their pub stools.

Then the civil rights movement started to gain traction, Northern Ireland was run as a third world police state for 40% of the population. Time and time again peaceful marchers were set upon by Unionist mobs, the RUC at best stood by and watched, in some cases actively participated. There was were what resembled eastern European pogroms in the nationalist areas of the north. When the British army was initially deployed as peace keepers, they were welcomed in the nationalist areas. Irish women brought tea out to British soldiers.

But very quickly it became obvious that the army were not peacekeepers, but it was more of the same, an army of occupation. the Provisional IRA was born out of the need for someone, anyone to protect the nationalist areas from the orange mobs and RUC. British government policy was the most effective recruiting campaign for the IRA in generations.

And then, when support for the armed struggle was waning in the '80's the British government stepped on it's dick again. the world watched while the Thatcher government let ten young Irishmen starve to death rather than make some relatively minor concessions in the terms of their confinement. At each funeral the marchers went from hundreds to thousands, to tens of thousands. Sinn Fein was vaulted from a political after thought to a major force on both sides of the border.

So, if the Republicans have not yet sent a nice thank you card and perhaps a fruit basket, their manners are slipping.

Last edited by tom8517; 09-10-2016 at 07:56 PM.
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