33 Comments

• kurtjohnson | Jan 16, 2011, 07:07 PM EST

  In any violent conflict bad things happen which are not justifiable. However, this conflict was precipitated by british terror against innocent indigenous non-combatants (including RUC led pogroms as well as the initial bifurcation against the democratic will of both Ulster and Ireland). No act of the IRA compares to the evil perpetrated by the british terror state particularly when you consider it was official (although covert - perhaps this is the reason for severe restrictions against freedom of speech) policy of the british terror state to harrass, torture, and murder non-combatants (see the O'Loan report for hints at this; as information is released it becomes more apparent that ballymurphy and bloody sunday were orchestrated from the top). I'm sure the indigenous partisans in Eastern Europe committed some wrongs against the invading Nazis. It really is a comparable situation, particularly considering that the british ethos, like the Nazis, has always been rooted in supremacism (as reflected in all of their state ceremonies and these cancerous orange marches).

• DrTrelawney | Jan 15, 2011, 10:22 AM EST

  I do object to "murders by authorities and their pro-British terror organisation". Who wouldn't? None of that justifies the IRA's bombing campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. It's as simple as that. Just once -- just once -- I'd like to see an apologist for the IRA attempt to justify one -- just one -- specific atrocity. Let's say the Shankill Road chip shop bombing, for instance. They never do. Their response is always simply to list the other side's atrocities. Yes? Okay. I agree. Now, answer the question. The only logical deduction to be drawn from such a response (if it can be so dignified) is that these attacks were part of a tit for tat campaign. You kill our innocent men, women and children. We kill yours. One lot is as bad as the other.

• seanomelbourne | Jan 14, 2011, 05:27 PM EST

  Dr.Trelwaney your piece as you wrote it appeared biased. Objecting to terrorism and murders by the authorities and their pro-British terror organizations would have brought some balance to your argument. The murder of children by crown forces ,of the 150 children killed in the north of Ireland 90% were killed by British forces or their surrogates for instance the 17 yr. old who was shot by a soldier because he took to long to answer a question. The young boy was mentally retarded. Majella (12)shot by a "soldier" because she would not tell the whereabouts of her brother.The babe in arms shot by a "rubber bullet" The injustices meted out on the Maguire family. The state murder of Giuseppe Conlon and the list goes on.

• DrTrelawney | Jan 14, 2011, 12:45 PM EST

  What? I don't even know what that means, Sean. Could you please explain. My sole point was that it is vile to blow up civilians and that, when pressed on this point, IRA apologists are incapable of justifying such attacks. Ask me about a specific act of "British terrorism" and I'll happily express an opinion. I agree there were many such outrages. I have never denied it. I really have no idea what your accusation means.

• seanomelbourne | Jan 14, 2011, 01:14 AM EST

  Dr Trelawney justifying British terrorism by omission.

• kurtjohnson | Jan 13, 2011, 12:24 AM EST

  I do agree that the intentional killing of non-combatants to be unequivocally wrong. However, this, combined with massive doses of supremacism, has been the standard rule rather than the exception for british conduct worldwide.

• DrTrelawney | Jan 12, 2011, 01:41 PM EST

  The "point", Kurt, is that no historical atrocities by the British justify, for example, the bombing of a chip shop in the Shankill Road, a bus station in Belfast's Oxford Street, a street in Warrington or... Well, I could go on all night. I have never seen an IRA apologist even try to justify -- not to mention, succeed in that task -- these bombings (and contemporaneous shootings). The response is always: "What about Bloody Sunday" What about Dublin and Monaghan?" I can only assume that the wretchedness of these acts is now an embarrassment even to the most fanatical IRA supporter. Incidentally, to describe them as mere "indiscretions" is faintly disgusting. I grew up in Belfast and I don't remember thinking: "Gosh, how indiscrete it is to blow an old lady's head off." The notion that such actions were defensive is utterly absurd.

• kurtjohnson | Jan 12, 2011, 12:25 AM EST

  Thanks, Searlit. The point that could never be absorbed by a brainwashed brit battery hen such as Dr. Trolloney is one of proportion. Comparing IRA indiscretions to global british terrorism is akin to comparing the boy scouts to atilla the hum. One must remember that the IRA was defending the indigenous populations from unspeakable horrors (if you don't believe this, read the O'Loan inquiry or eyewitness accounts of Ballymurphy).

• Woodman | Jan 11, 2011, 07:34 PM EST

  This is all revisionist history of dubious character. King's record on Northern Ireland is outstanding. King alway supported a negotiated settlement and was instrumental in encouraging IRA ceasefires and the peace talks that followed. King was one of the few Republicans who supported the American visa for Gerry Adams, while characters like this Tom Parker were promoting the British Government as caring for human rights. And what exactly is this Parker character trying to do now anyway with his questionable comments. How does it contribute to anything? King's position on N Ireland was and is the correct one.

• Searlit | Jan 11, 2011, 04:37 PM EST

  Great post kurtjohnson! Where have you been? I haven't seen posts by you for some time.

• Cranleigh | Jan 11, 2011, 12:10 PM EST

  Guys, the crimes of others do not absolve us of responsibility for our conduct - isn't that a basic moral notion? So the Blitz of London did not justify Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima etc. The IRA's campaign was plain wrong and Peter King was wrong to support it. Now that the political climate has changed, he has seen fit to change his tune like many a slippery pol before him.

• DrTrelawney | Jan 11, 2011, 07:23 AM EST

  "Was the terror state responsible for the atrocity bombings of civilians in Dresden? How about using terror bombing and chemical weapons against non-combatants in Iraq and Iran?" Groan! Once again, as is always the case, IRA apologists refuse to address the specific allegations and change the subject.

• irishsa | Jan 11, 2011, 03:10 AM EST

  The bombing of Dresden, Iraq and Iran was jointly carried out by the US and UK. Nelson Mandela is South African and South Africa has been an independant country in one from or another for 100 years. A lot of third world countries consider US Imperialism to have taken over from British Imperialism. They do not see a diffence between the UK and US.

• kurtjohnson | Jan 10, 2011, 08:42 PM EST

  There is no existing political entity with a comparable scale of atrocities on its hands than the british terror state. Keep in mind that these have historically been carried out with an extremely racist and supremacist bent. Most terror state fans even consider Nelson Mandela a terrorist - any indigenous resistance to colonial atrocities and degradation is branded as terrorism. Re the reference to MLK, Ghandi and civil disobedience, these tactics were met with immediate deadly force and torture in Ireland. @Dr. Trollawney - Was the terror state responsible for the atrocity bombings of civilians in Dresden? How about using terror bombing and chemical weapons against non-combatants in Iraq and Iran?

• pilib04 | Jan 09, 2011, 07:35 PM EST

  The storyline of this article does fit with the regular IRA bashing of IrishCentral. Nothing in the article about King's involvement in bringing peace to Ireland. Nothing From probrit Amnesty about King's involement in the Clinton peace proposals. Shame Niall, but that's just the way you are! But even Niall comes across as a Brit Shoneen for publishing this puff piece.

• pilib04 | Jan 09, 2011, 07:30 PM EST

  seamusmoore, very thoughtful.

• pilib04 | Jan 09, 2011, 07:26 PM EST

  I always suspected the anglophile Amnesty International because they are so weak when it comes to British Human Rights violations and British Terrorism. What more can you expect? These are the people who ignored Paul Hill, uirseppe Conlon, Gerry Conlon, Annie Mcguire and her family. This is the same AI who ignored the Birmingham show trial. Who ignored the massacres at Derry on Bloody Sunday. Nothing from these frauds about Rosemary Nelson and Patrick Finucane. I have no great love for the right-wing nonsense that Peter King spouts, but to accuse him of being a supporter of terrorism is nonsense.

• cillowen | Jan 09, 2011, 05:56 PM EST

  His is not a complete disconnect - ancestral connections that speak to occupiers of lands of his father/mother triumphs - over the faith or fate of another who isbent on harming said gentleman from a land where his ancestors sought freedom in. No comparison. Brain compute stuff.

• Ulsterborn | Jan 09, 2011, 04:10 PM EST

  9/11--karma, karma, karma. When will Peter King and his ilk get it? When you give money that buys bombs, it will come back to your America's Homeland. Here's hoping the next attack--and it will come--hits his home town.

• Paradigm | Jan 09, 2011, 03:06 PM EST

  Sure anyone knows Congressman Peter King was ever an opportunist, a Republican who played the Democrat card; a equal-righter who bad-mouthed Ulster Protestants en bloc while cosying up to the Godfathers of IRA violence. Truely, if he'd taken Holy Orders, he'd have qualified as the proverbial "Vicar of Bray, sir"!

• Pittsburghkid | Jan 09, 2011, 02:57 PM EST

  The IRA never planted a bomb in America, but Muslims danced in the streets on 9/11. The IRA defended Irish Catholics at the hands of the Provisionals of the Protestant North. Most of the money for the IRA comes from America. The IRA is not a problem in America. HomeLand Security spends most of its time putting it's hands up young girl skirts, and leaving Muslim walse through untouched. M Muslim woman are premitted to self patdown, because Home Land Security is about surpressing Americans.

• DrTrelawney | Jan 09, 2011, 01:55 PM EST

  You recall wrongly, Seamus. I was born in Belfast and was having my tonsils out on that day. When did I ever say I was raised in Dublin? (Though I live there now.) It continues to astonishes me that apologists for the IRA always change the question when asked about specific atrocities. For decades, whenever Gerry Adams was asked to condemn violence, he began blabbering about "all violence, blah, blah". I am not being selective about the Dublin bombings. That simply wasn't the subject under discussion. The wretchedness of that attack does not in any way lesson the horror of Bloody Friday. We all know the circumstances that preceded the IRA's campaign. None of that excuses -- or even adequately explains -- the IRA's ruthless bombing campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. Here is the key phrase that most annoys me in such defenses: "almost all of the bombings you cite would have never happened if the British govt had stood up to Paisley and Company on Sunningdale." That may be so. But by far the greatest responsibility for those bombings remains with the people who ordered them and the people who placed them. To say otherwise is to employ the ancient terrorist construction: if you don't do what I say then you are responsible for what I do. No! The terrorist is responsible for placing his bomb. Your question begins: "can really blame the nationalist side..." Well, I certainly blame those particular nationalists for placing those particular bombs. Anybody who says otherwise is a disgrace. I think we can safely assume that Seamus Mallon would agree.

• seamusmoore | Jan 09, 2011, 11:08 AM EST

  @DrTrelawney If I recall correctly, you are a Dub, were you also living there in May, 1974 for the no-warning bombing at the height of Friday night rush hour? Was that not targeted at civilians and designed for maximum casualties. No one was ever arrested for that atrocity (along with Monaghan the same day); although it appears that one of that bombing organizers, Captain Robert Nairac of the Paras, did receive a sentence for his crime. Your memory of atrocities is selective. If you recall, six months prior to Bloody Friday, the Paras had taken target practice on peaceful civil right marchers in Derry(killing 14 in cold blood). When peaceful means of achieving civil rights are blocked (see Ian Paisley's torpedoing of Capt Terrence O' Neill as well as the Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish agreements), there is not much alternative. The British govt never had the bottle to stand up to the Unionists and their threat of violence (1913 founding of the UVF and Larne gunrunning). Can you really blame the nationalist side when they see the results that the mere threat of violence by Unionists achieved? Peaceful means of achieving civil rights are always preferrable (Ghandi, MLK); unfortunately, it takes two to tango to go the peaceful route. Seamus Mallon of the SDLP referred to the Good Friday agreement as "Sunningdale for very slow learners". Sadly, almost all of the bombings you cite would have never happened if the British govt had stood up to Paisley and Company on Sunningdale. One reaps what one sows I guess.

• monaghanjack | Jan 09, 2011, 10:17 AM EST

  King realises that there are many misinformed Americans & he wants their vote. That is King's Agenda & he will do whatever it takes to keep his supporters on board. I often wonder if 9/11 has any effect on King or indeed if he indirectly caused it. The people of Ireland supported by Clinton & Bush, have voted in a democratic way to leave Ireland as it is. Does King not recognise democracy or is he about to invent a new kind of KingDemocarcy. The advice to King is "Work on what you know & don't get involved in things you do not understand".

• DrTrelawney | Jan 09, 2011, 07:38 AM EST

  It is wrong to say Peter King "never supported the bombings". He was a vocal supporter of the IRA when they were behaving like inhuman savages. Remember La Mon , Bloody Friday, the Abercorn, Enniskillen, Frizzels Chip Shop, Warrington, Canary Wharf, Birmingham? I do. I was in the Royal Victoria Hospital on Bloody Friday when the police had to sweep the remains of civilians into bin bags at Oxford Street bus station. A police officer famously broke down after seeing an old lady's disembodied head stuck to a wall. I suppose she was a "military target". It's disgusting the way these unforgivable -- and entirely unjustifiable -- outrages are glossed over. They were not the fault of the "occupying forces". They were the fault of those who planted the bombs and of reprehensible dupes like King who felt they were supporting some sort of honorable rebellion. His Damascene conversion when confronted with Islamic terrorism is pathetic.

• seanomelbourne | Jan 09, 2011, 01:34 AM EST

  military establishment exactly my point I have read some articles by Parker he's no friend of the Irish. How do you know who's birthday it was? maybe your jumping to conclusions.

• kurtjohnson | Jan 08, 2011, 10:39 PM EST

  Of course, their real beef with Peter King concerns his efforts to expose the atrocities of the british terror state in contravention of official UK censorship. You can bet this spoiled little hypocrite has never done anything productive to expose worldwide british torture and murder machine.

• Dublinjas | Jan 08, 2011, 09:31 PM EST

  Peter King is a George Bush era toyboy homeland security Fascist Fcuking Cu - nt

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 08, 2011, 07:02 PM EST

  @seanomelbourne – here’s an alternative…his friend booked the ‘military establishment’ for a social event, most of these places can be hired same as social clubs, and he just happened to be there…best not to jump to conclusions or use terms such as ‘obviously a unionist sympathizer’ with little or no evidence

• seanomelbourne | Jan 08, 2011, 06:17 PM EST

  Parker is obviously a unionist sympathizer fraternizing with the enemy in a military establishment.

• manhattan | Jan 08, 2011, 02:57 PM EST

  Peter King never supported the bombings etc. he was for human rights for catholics who never had any under Ulster Northern Ireland. Perhaps if the republic had worked for that many years ago the troubles of the 60's wouldn't have happened. I'm sick of hearing people like Peter King painted with that brush, he meant well and I am so happy he will get tough on the illegals here in the USA. He is a rare honest politician.

• irishwxman | Jan 08, 2011, 01:59 PM EST

  Very well said seamusmoore

• seamusmoore | Jan 08, 2011, 12:04 PM EST

  Granted the IRA had a number of "no warning" bombs detonate, primarily with the military as targets, but can you think of one instance when Muslim terrorists ever issued a warning? Sending suicide bombers into public spaces (even mosques)and strapping suicide vests on mentally handicapped women, in my opinion, elevates Muslim extemists to a different level of depravity. Other than being a NORAID supporter, which seems to be what most hold against him, Peter King was very supportive of the peace process, probably the deciding factor of him voting against Clinton's impeachment in Dec '98. King was also highly critical of the IRA's Columbia 3 fiasco, which ultimately forced the Provisional IRA to decommission in 2005. As for Parker's "terrorist assessment method", what exactly would "the cause" (for one to agree with) of Muslim extremists in say the London 7/7, the Bali or the Egyptian hotel bombings be? The IRA never blew up the Sears' tower in Chicago, did they?