40 Comments

• seanomelbourne | Sep 15, 2010, 07:28 PM EDT

  Watchman I have read pieces in the press by McKittrick surely you cannot see him as an impartial observer in Irish affairs. Are you fudging figures? if you extrapolate army,police and other armed government entities your 1824 figure is rather spurious.And what deaths are removed to give you 900. Given that over 3000 people perished your figure do not add up.

• hancock | Sep 15, 2010, 02:57 PM EDT

  So what?

• Watchman | Sep 15, 2010, 02:44 PM EDT

  hancock: No, but the recent Troubles did.

• hancock | Sep 15, 2010, 12:56 PM EDT

  Watchman killing in Ireland didn't start in 1969.

• Watchman | Sep 15, 2010, 11:01 AM EDT

  seanomelbourne: I'm sorry to hear that you think I lack credibility and am out to excuse "British murder in Ireland". I didn't say the killings by loyalists were "irrelevant". I was making the point that neither the loyalists nor Crown forces killed the most people, or even the most non-combatants. That particular palm goes to the Provisional IRA and other republican groups. I think I know the book you're talking about: Lost Lives, edited by my good friend David McKittrick, with whom I'm having dinner in Belfast next week. If you consult it carefully, you will find the number of deaths attributed to each organisation clearly listed. I'm in France at the moment and don't have my copy to hand, but according to the reputable Cain archive, quoting independent research, the IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,824 people between July 1969 and December 2001 (with others since by spinoff groups), during which time it lost approximately 275 of its own members. Over much the same period, loyalist groups are estimated, between them, to have murdered some 900 people, the majority of them innocent Catholics. I don't seek to justify loyalist violence any more than I seek to justify unwarranted killings by the British Army and the RUC, both of which bodies in their time have placed me under arrest. But discredit where discredit is due. Oh, and by the way, you need to look up the word extrapolate. It means to apply one set of facts or one line of argument to another, unresolved, debate.

• Monsoonman | Sep 14, 2010, 11:18 PM EDT

  I look at what corrupt leaders of my country have done to it, especially the ones that fixed the mortgage and banking system to make it a liberal wet dream, where everyone deserved a loan from the banks even if they didn't have a job and could never repay the loan....it was the only "fair" thing to do, it was the liberal thing to do. BTW: I have always been a proponent of American taxpayer dollars being spent for American infrastructure be open to bid for only American firms. Private enterprise is an entirely different story.

• seanomelbourne | Sep 14, 2010, 09:02 PM EDT

  Monsoonman you're doing it again you cannot be a free marketeer and be a bleeding heart when some international company(ies)wins a contract. We have that problem here with Chinese,Japanese,American and other groups win contracts.It is only when an economy is in dire straits that the populace notice these anomalies and if isolationism is your new mantra it would further destroy your economy. You cannot preach Reaganomics(open market)no rules and hide behind trade barriers when you feel threatened. By the way look what Reaganomics and greed did to your financial system 2 yrs ago and still suffering.You can easy sidekick that bone blame Obama. One would think he had been in office for 10 yrs with all the GOP garbage and innuendo he has endured.

• maloney | Sep 14, 2010, 03:25 PM EDT

  Infrastructure is another attempt to find ways to sink the country a little lower & make the people think he is doing something good. Monsoon hit the nail on the head. If passed it will cost 100 times more than it should like everything else he touches.

• Monsoonman | Sep 14, 2010, 10:44 AM EDT

  Infrastructure lad is what you need a government for, that and national defense, if anything those are the key ingredients....Everything else is vote buying fluff and nanny state politics. I have no bone to pick with real infrastructure expenditures. I do have a problem with obamas politicization of those infrastrure improvements. Forcing the builders of them to be a certain race or color, or sex, or sexual orientation. Requiring them to pay union dues and hiring only union workers, who in turn with their benefits and dues donate directly to the democrat party. Yes I do have a problem with some of it lad. The work should go to the lowest qualified U.S. company bidding on those projects...You do know red chinese government owned construction companies are doing some of this infrastucture work in the USA?

• seanomelbourne | Sep 13, 2010, 08:02 PM EDT

  Moonsoonman Obama wishes to spend more money on aging infrastructure and you have chastised him in past blogs for big spending. Your mantra of "small government and less spending" seems rather shallow now that you are face to face with a local problem.

• seanomelbourne | Sep 13, 2010, 07:55 PM EDT

  Watchman I don't understand your logic you extrapolate the bombing of bars and attacks on the nationalist population by pro British terrorist groups as if their deaths were irrelevant in the scheme of things I do possess a book listing every death and who was at fault (over 3000). Are you looking for an excuse to justify British murder in Ireland. Your piece lacks credibility.

• Monsoonman | Sep 13, 2010, 11:29 AM EDT

  Sean me boy...Yes I am fine, thank you for the concern. Investigators are looking at a 30" natural gas line at 300 psi. The line is made of steel, is 50 y.o., wrapped I am sure, but under constant bombardment by electrolysis in the soil(no not the hair removal type). The investigation will show the explosion came as a result of a spark. Our infrastructure is aging and needs the capital expenditures to replace the failing pieces...We also need money for the illegal aliens healthcare, housing and benefits too? What to do?...Another explosion like that could kill illegal aliens! Obama will make the right decision and replace any aging gas lines that happen to be near illegal alien abodes.

• hancock | Sep 13, 2010, 11:24 AM EDT

  The English are the cause. The army "behaved badly", I could see you almost choking those words out on your keyboard. P.S. Ireland's trouble with England didn't start in 1969.

• Watchman | Sep 13, 2010, 04:22 AM EDT

  Seanomelbourne: I don't have the stats to hand, but, excluding the toxic contribution of the UDA, UFF, UVF etc, I'd be prepared to bet that more innocents were killed by the IRA, INLA, dissident IRAs etc, than ever fell victim to the British Army or the RUC. Whenever there were fatalities as the result of an IRA bomb, in most instances it was non-combatants who died. The number killed must run into the hundreds. In fact, if we leave out obvious incidents like Bloody Sunday (and there were only ever a tiny handful of these), nearly of those shot dead by the Army and police over the 30 years of the Troubles were armed Republicans, or, in some cases, armed Loyalists. The number of IRA funerals is evidence of this. After a shooting, the volunteers would be buried with full military honours, including shots fired over the graves. This was because they were considered soldiers who had died in action. the "disappeared," murdered by the Provos, received no burial at all. Women and children killed in bomb attacks, as at Claudy and Omagh, were buried by their families, with the IRA (real or realer) denying responsibility. Of course the loyalist organisations did despicable things. They were pure evil. And on occasions the Army and the RUC behaved badly and killed innocent people, usually – but not always – in error. That said, the balance sheet is clear. The Provisional IRA was the number one agent of terror throughout the Troubles, and was backed throughout by Irish America. The judgement of history may be that the campaign of violence was a necessary evil, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't evil.

• DennisQ | Sep 13, 2010, 12:58 AM EDT

  Let's leave wishful thinking out of it, Ajreaper. Take a look at the video.

• DennisQ | Sep 13, 2010, 12:57 AM EDT

  So, monsoonman, you're not going to look at the video. No guts.

• maloney | Sep 13, 2010, 12:12 AM EDT

  ulster...last I heard your people were leaving pipe bombs in Catholic elemetary school yards. Yes we do everything better than you, including bombs, ours go bang. SEANO...they were actually illegals trying to dig thier way to see you down under. They heard how wonderful it is there and it wasn't gas, it was bean juice. Hard to tell how many children in iraq. Men, women & children all wear sheets.

• seanomelbourne | Sep 12, 2010, 11:28 PM EDT

  Monsoonman hope your part of S.F. escaped the fire. I have a theory Palestinian tunnel makers took a wrong turn and inadvertently ruptured the gas line or maybe they tried to redirect it to Gaza.

• seanomelbourne | Sep 12, 2010, 11:24 PM EDT

  To set the record straight most civilians killed in N.I. were murdered by the army or pro-British terrorists,of the 150 children(u17) killed in the conflict 137 were killed by the army/R.U.C. or their proxies. By the way how many children were murdered by the U.S. in Iraqi bombings.

• Ulster1 | Sep 12, 2010, 11:00 PM EDT

  Hancock, you said: "The English govt/ military are just as much terrorists as the IRA ever were." When it comes to bombing buildings and cities, nobody can do it like the Americans!

• Monsoonman | Sep 12, 2010, 08:50 PM EDT

  Don't do it Dennis, you have your whole life ahead of you and....there is still time to repent! But I have to toast you me lad, for sheer persistence in the face of overwhelming facts and the ridicule and abuse that go along with it.. I guess it is an Irish stubborness trait...Carry on lad and slainte!

• DennisQ | Sep 12, 2010, 08:42 PM EDT

  Say it ain't so, Monsoonman! You've stopped believing me? I think I'll go out and hang myself.
  
  But go ahead and humor me one last time, OK? Watch the video again and tell me the roof does not gather speed as it falls. Unfortunately I'm a hopeless case, because every time I see that video, that's what it does.

• DennisQ | Sep 12, 2010, 08:39 PM EDT

  You've finally made an observation I can agree with,Ajreaper. I don't explain how it could have happened; in fact I don't address methods at all. I just say that the increasing speed of the roof of Building Seven as it falls is evidence of acceleration.
  
  And here's something else! Every time I look at that video, I still see the roof of the building increase in speed from frame to frame. Surely we're not looking at different videos, are we? I'm talking about the video of Building Seven on September 11th. It starts out, gathers speed, then finally disappears from view. I've used the word acceleration to describe the behavior of a falling object that picks up speed as it travels.
  
  Go ahead, humor me. Watch the video again and tell me if it doesn't at least appear to accelerate.

• Monsoonman | Sep 12, 2010, 08:21 PM EDT

  Sorry Dennis me boyo, your whacko logic has just cooked your credibility goose on all other issues. You should keep quiet like rosie o'donnel does and let others guess how whacked out you are, rather than opening your mouth up and dispelling the mystery. Hasta luego, from Californio, the land of fruits and nuts.

• Ajreaper | Sep 12, 2010, 07:56 PM EDT

  LOL, ya don't explain how it could have happened just accept it did because all the details just get in the way of what you wish to believe. You want to flail away at wind mills go ahead Don Quixote.

• hancock | Sep 12, 2010, 06:34 PM EDT

  The English govt/ military are just as much terrorists as the IRA ever were.

• DennisQ | Sep 12, 2010, 05:24 PM EDT

  Please do look at the video of Building Seven's collapse, Ajreaper. It's very obvious that it's picking up speed as it falls. I'm not asking you to do any more than acknowledge the truth of what your own eyes will tell you.
  
  Building Seven is more than falling, it's actually accelerating as it falls. The acceleration is measurable in a frame-by-frame replay of the video, and the final speed of the collapse is significantly faster than the original speeds. In the first frame, the building falls at a certain rate per second, and that rate increases as you advance the video.
  
  Your argument that somebody would have noticed people wiring the building really doesn't address the actual measurements of the collapse. You don't have to explain the data to acknowledge that it really does show an acceleration. You're trying to say that because you believe the observed acceleration is impossible, it doesn't exist. However, that's not science - you are allowing your conclusions to interfere with your observations.

• Ajreaper | Sep 12, 2010, 05:05 PM EDT

  Explain how they prepare a building for implosion without anyone being the wiser? It's impossible, completely 100% not possible so anything you say cannot be true minus the other.

• DennisQ | Sep 12, 2010, 05:00 PM EDT

  A object in freefall picks up an additional 32 feet per second for each second it falls. That's the speed of the top of Building Seven as it collapses on September 11th. The reason scientists say that Building Seven fell at freefall speed is that they've measured the distance travelled for each second of the collapse. There's no room for argument there, Ajreaper - these are simple measurements of distance and time.
  
  The National Institute of Standards and Technology got around the problem by substituting the actual time of travel with something they called the average time of travel, and they did something really deceitful as well. Instead of starting the count when the roof starts falling, they started the count several seconds before. That brings the average figure into line with the principle of the conservation of momentum. They also decided to make their calculations a national secret.
  
  Look for yourself at the speed of the collapse of Building Seven - it's smooth and continuous, and increases with each passing second. It's no wonder that NIST doesn't want you to look closely at their computations! The building is collapsing at freefall speed, and there's only one way that that can happen . . . if there's nothing in the way.

• Ulster1 | Sep 12, 2010, 01:20 PM EDT

  As Americans remember the terrorism of 9/11, they should also consider how the terrorism of IRA bombs killed innocent people--both Protestant and Roman Catholic. How much of the money to buy the bombs was given by Irish-Americans over the past forty years. Think of the 1998 bombing in the town of Omagh, Co. Tyrone. Your money paid for it. What goes around comes around,as they say. It's still happening--"Irish" Americans funding the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. I know the doctor's office at the end of my grand-parents street was bombed. Many innocent people in Afganistan have been "accidentaly" killed by U.S military weapons. I express my condolences to all families of terrorism.

• Ajreaper | Sep 12, 2010, 11:11 AM EDT

  Dennis anyone with half a clue understands to implode a building takes weeks or even months of preperation- walls are removed, steel support beams exposed, and in the case of building like the twin towers thousands of feet of det cord would be strung everywhere. There would need to be an army of men working virtually non-stop for a very long period of time and all of that would be impossible to hide. 100% impossible. The nutt jobs wish to take bit and pieces that support their position and ignore all of that which does not. Explain how an army of workers and massive pre-implosion work could go unnoticed for weeks and months and I'll listen to the rest until then not worth my time.

• Ajreaper | Sep 12, 2010, 10:07 AM EDT

  The capacity for both good and bad is great in humans- one problem we seem to have as a species is often we are very happy to sit back and say and and do nothing because we are not directly touched by violence that occurs daily in our world. Unfortunately to rid the world of violence it oftened must be confronted violently- not everything can be neogotiated like gentlemen. Everyone wants peace and freedom they just don't always believe others who are unlike them should be entitled to it as well. How many of his own people did Saddam murder while he was in power? How many died when he attacked Kuwait? The world largely sat back and did nothing- or was it ok for him as the leader of Iraq to murder his own people?

• Watchman | Sep 12, 2010, 09:35 AM EDT

  Southern Pride may be a wee bit over the top, but there's no doubt that the Provisional IRA did some terrible things during its 30-year campaign, during which it was, without any question, a terrorist organisation. Many of its leaders are now your friends, Niall. Twenty years ago, they were ordering the shooting of soldiers, policemen, politicians, rivals, opponents and – as collateral damage – innocent women and children. At the same time they were blowing the heart out of Belfast and Derry and launching major attacks on the British mainland. You weren't the only one whose soul was seared.

• seanomelbourne | Sep 12, 2010, 03:30 AM EDT

  9/11 was a terrible tragedy,but when you interfere in the internal affairs of other countries you must expect retaliation nasty though it may be.

• vincentruane | Sep 12, 2010, 02:27 AM EDT

  This is a fair question although it may be a unpopular question. How many innocent lives have been killed in Iraq due to the horrible loss of innocent American lives on 9-11. Any person who is genuinely horrified by the loss of American human lives should be equally horrified by the killing of innocent Iraquo's. The collective savage assault on the human rights of the American people since the horrible tragedy of 9-11 by both the Democratic and Republican parties and there close association with the oppressive pages of communism should ring a major alarm bell in any journalists ear, who admire George Washington,Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy.

• Ajreaper | Sep 11, 2010, 06:04 PM EDT

  A sad and horrible day. Both for what happened that day and the aftermath of decisions our nations leadership has made in response. I hope history will prove our actions in response to 9/11 were more right then wrong.

• Niall O'Dowd | Sep 11, 2010, 08:28 AM EDT

  Southern Pride the IRA campaign had well ended when 9/11 happened

• DennisQ | Sep 11, 2010, 03:41 AM EDT

  Next year, the tenth anniversary, will mark the end of Phase 1 of the mourning period. We've seen that unscrupulous politicians like Newt Gingrich and New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio will exploit the date to their political advantage. Other, more vulgar figures like Gaineville pastor Terry Jones will go so far as foment religious warfare.
  
  Getting a good look at these people will be an incentive to move on to a more unsentimental evaluation of the events of the day. September 11th was used to start wars that were unrelated to it; and it is being used to justify the sort of bigotry that America's founders fervently hoped to avoid. Perhaps the tenth anniversary will also prompt a more realistic assessment of what actually happened. The 9/11 Commission glossed over not just the official mis-steps but potential criminal wrongdoing of people who were supposed to be protecting us.
  
  After 10 years, buildings replacing the World Trade Center will be nearing completion, as Building Seven is already nearing completion today. Significantly, the Islamic Center on Park Place will be underway as well. It won't be as easy for the vulgarians to stir up trouble next year as it was this year, and thank God for that!

• hancock | Sep 11, 2010, 02:03 AM EDT

  Were the IRA Irish Americans?

• Southernpride | Sep 10, 2010, 11:29 PM EDT

  Irish-Americans got a taste of how evil terrorist scum really are. Irish-Americans ceased giving money to IRA terrorists. The No1 IRA terrorist supporter, Peter King started having doubts about supporting IRA terrorists