The "Troubles" Debate Thread

@kevcvs57 said
It wasn’t me that bought the potato famine into the discussion Pete I’m just responding to another posters attempted conflation of the subjects.
I’d much rather stick to the period between say, 1950 and the Good Friday agreement.

Edit
If we have to discuss this moribund poisonous issue at all.

A famine is where there is not enough food and people starve.

There wasn't a famine in Ireland in the late 1840s; large quantities of food were being exported off the island even in the face of mass starvation and suffering.

It does belong in another thread, but let's get the facts straight; that so many died in Ireland during the blight was because of government policies and social conditions forcibly imposed on the Irish People, not primarily because of the blight (which spread across most of Europe without horrific consequences anywhere but Ireland).

@no1marauder said
A famine is where there is not enough food and people starve.

There wasn't a famine in Ireland in the late 1840s; large quantities of food were being exported off the island even in the face of mass starvation and suffering.

It does belong in another thread, but let's get the facts straight; that so many died in Ireland during the blight was because of government po ...[text shortened]... the blight (which spread across most of Europe without horrific consequences anywhere but Ireland).

By that logic there hasn't been a famine anywhere on Earth since the 18th Century.

@kazetnagorra said
By that logic there hasn't been a famine anywhere on Earth since the 18th Century.

BS.

I'm not talking about world wide supplies incapable of reaching an area in sufficient time; I'm talking about a deliberate policy to remove food from an area at a time when people are starving.

A British parliamentarian suggested the Irish eat grass.

@kevcvs57 said
https://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/charts/troubles_deaths_by_status_organisation.gif
Just for context 49% of deaths are attributed to PIRA
9% attributed to the British Army
The remainder being attributed to the RUC and Loyalist terrorist groups and smaller Republican terrorist groups.

As I mentioned it’s complex but the graphs in the link break it down.
Wh ...[text shortened]... he’s repeating some of the more imaginative propaganda emanating from the Republican Terrorist side.

The figures show that about 80% of those killed by Loyalist Paramilitaries and over half those killed by British Security forces were civilians. The figure for the Nationalist Forces is about 1/3.

Again, who was the "terrorists"?

@wolfgang59 said
With all due respect we don't need the story.

We know about the inequality, we know about RUC violence, we know about
the fear-monger Paisley, we know about Bloody Sunday. We probably agree
almost 100% on the atrocities committed against the Catholics. But where we
part company is the question of IRA legitimacy in retaliatory attacks against the
innocent.

Mayb ...[text shortened]... e there is a case targeting the Army
but justifying attacks on civilians is a hard one to pull off.

The campaign's legitimacy needs to be established first.

From there I'll deal with the false claim that the IRA deliberately targeted civilians as a matter of policy.

@no1marauder said
BS.

I'm not talking about world wide supplies incapable of reaching an area in sufficient time; I'm talking about a deliberate policy to remove food from an area at a time when people are starving.

A British parliamentarian suggested the Irish eat grass.

Yeah, so it was a famine caused/worsened by government policy. Like most famines in human history, and almost all of them in recent history.

@divegeester said
Which democratically elected Parliament signed off the IRA’s murders?

I don't accept the term "murders" to describe deaths during war except when they are caused by violations of the rules of war.

An oppressed People need not conduct elections before they resist tyranny. An oppressed individual has a Natural Right to do so.

@no1marauder said
The figures show that about 80% of those killed by Loyalist Paramilitaries and over half those killed by British Security forces were civilians. The figure for the Nationalist Forces is about 1/3.

Again, who was the "terrorists"?

You don't have to defend, say, Bloody Sunday in order to disagree with the IRA's bombing of "only" 1/3 civilians.

@kazetnagorra said
Yeah, so it was a famine caused/worsened by government policy. Like most famines in human history, and almost all of them in recent history.

Your historical ignorance is noted. In many areas where famines occurred, governments were too inefficient or distant to actually effectively remedy the conditions causing the famine. This was surely not true of the British Empire and Ireland in the 1840s.

If someone wants to start that thread, I'll bring forth the relevant facts and data to show that the Irish "Famine" in the 1840s was less a natural disaster than a Crime Against Humanity.

@kazetnagorra said
You don't have to defend, say, Bloody Sunday in order to disagree with the IRA's bombing of "only" 1/3 civilians.

That dishonestly assumes a deliberate policy to kill those civilians which did not exist.

Unfortunately, civilians do get killed in wars, even just ones. The figures show which of the sides was more callous towards civilians and which made more efforts to avoid civilian deaths.

IF posters on the other side which to concede the moral justness of the uprising, we can proceed to their charges that the IRA nevertheless conducted it in a way that violated the laws of war.

@no1marauder said
A famine is where there is not enough food and people starve.

There wasn't a famine in Ireland in the late 1840s; large quantities of food were being exported off the island even in the face of mass starvation and suffering.

It does belong in another thread, but let's get the facts straight; that so many died in Ireland during the blight was because of government po ...[text shortened]... the blight (which spread across most of Europe without horrific consequences anywhere but Ireland).

And the individual smallholder Irishmen who in effect created a monoculture out of the potato, do they bare any responsibility at all or are they hapless children.
I’ve accepted the British Governments responsibility for what happened but casting them as pantomime villains and everybody other actor as innocent downtrodden angels is not going to give a grownup picture of what actually created the horror.

" But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-"

US Declaration of Independence

@kevcvs57 said
And the individual smallholder Irishmen who in effect created a monoculture out of the potato, do they bare any responsibility at all or are they hapless children.
I’ve accepted the British Governments responsibility for what happened but casting them as pantomime villains and everybody other actor as innocent downtrodden angels is not going to give a grownup picture of what actually created the horror.

That "culture" was created because of an economic system imposed upon them by foreign invaders and tyrants. Nonetheless, there remained sufficient food on the island to feed the People if that had been the priority of the British government and the rich landholders who dominated Ireland's economy.

It, of course, wasn't.

@no1marauder said
An oppressed People need not conduct elections before they resist tyranny. An oppressed individual has a Natural Right to do so.

So would you support the actions of ISIS by this same principle?