David Lock

Correct me immediately if I am wrong but Adams was voted into Westminster? That's democracy. DL

filfy

Moses is this you ?????



Only kidding dont put a jihad on me will you

Leslie

It is easy to apologise for what happened when you were not in power. He certainly won't do the same for the soldiers and Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives of course UB.

Les

moses

jerome i know u aint bud and i know most arent, i had to speak like that to give a taste to dsmith like what its like to get picked on and tarred all the time, like those irish guys who were imprisoned etc or anyone who is in guatanamo arent all terrorists, thats all bud, i didnt mean anything i wanted to show him the pain when someone tars u all the same, half the muslim world is white bud from bosnia to russia , chechyna

see my folk the scots see things both sides but the english lot for some reason , not all but most think differently as if their the best, sod everyone else they must be bad.


lol @ filfy haha that was funny bud, i dont look anything like that i dont have a beard on my face or pubic area and def no turban



dsmith i dont see anyone as christians, whites or jews, i learned that from the whiteman, coz thats the way he see's it and i caught some of their sickness, but i see people as humans.



and crush her, im a scot this is my country, maybe u aught to go and stay in a different country to feel how it feels like to get picked on like u guys do with these irish folk who were convicted

Chip

I think the fact that terrorists are allowed to stand in the first instance is farcical. Dont you.

chip

moses

bros, fight against global terrorism should start from the state, only reason their are terrorists in the world is coz of the oppression and humiliation of people like the states who sponsor terrorism coz of their policies

David Lock

Well yes but....

It's the people's representatives in the form of MPs that would have to bar them from standing by introducing an Act of Parliament. On the other hand it's the "people" in the form of constituents that vote them in.

What should happen is that they shouldn't (in my book) win the vote. But they do.

DL

Chip

A bit like Tony Blair and New Labour then

Chip

David Lock

An oligarchy - that's the answer...... No one under 50 for starters

Or bring back John Major......

fast bloke

What you need to remember is that a fairly large portion of the people of Northern Ireland decided he should represent them in parliment. Remember - no right thinking republican ever wanted representation in the british government - they believe they should be represented in the Irish govt, but it seems they have been invaded by a foreign army that hold slightly more than half of the aces

Brit_in_Japan

You seem to forget that Gerry Adams & Martin McGuiness actually represent more moderate views within Sinn Fein/IRA. There are extremists in that organisation who would never countenance discussing anything with the British government, let alone giving up weapons. They are the hardline, gun toting, bomb making element which would have been happy to shoot and bomb for year after year, generation after generation. To give Gerry Adams power with his own people you have to grant him some legitimacy. That means meeting him in person and even holding meetings in Downing Street. Don't forget that even Bill Clinton was directly involved with the peace process, now that's a measure of the legitimacy Adams needed within his own party.

Without that power he would not have a sufficient lever over the hardliners to call a ceasefire and make it hold. As it was it caused a split in the IRA where you had the PIRA (Provisional IRA) sticking with Adams and a splinter groups the RIRA (Real IRA) and the CIRA (Continuity IRA) who didn't agree a ceasefire and continued with violence <someone correct me if I'm wrong>.

I think that's a false comparison, the situations are very different. Sinn Fein/IRA were comparitively united with more easily understandable political aims. As such it was possible for Adams/McGuiness to represent their people and to make agreements.

What are the political objectives of OBL/Al-Qaeda? Getting US troops out of Saudi Arabia? That's already been achieved (1-0 to AQ). Justice for the Palistinians? OBL has no power or legitimacy to speak for them. What else does he want? OBL is overrated in terms of the power he wields. His organisation (if you can call it that) is loose and diverse. In many cases there is no connection at all between groups, they simply have similar religious based political aims. There is no central command and control structure, no way of delivering a ceasefire. So no, inviting OBL to Downing St won't happen, he has no power to deliver anything. But if the situation was different and he had that power, it should not be ruled out, no matter how objectionable that might be.

moses

true bros, osama and people like zarqawi are weak, they pray on problems of muslims in the world and some people already pi55ed off with the western countries and it twists their mind and they want revenge, without these effected and hurting people, osama can do f*** all, coz he is the only one talking about the problems in the muslim world, people follow him

just like nick griffin in the bnp, he prays on effected minds and basically has an audience who listen to him

BEW

I'm just curious about something from this thread: why all the "no smoke without fire" type comments?

Are we saying that the women jailed then set free for killing their kids are guilty even though the so called "expert" evidence was dismissed on appeal and cot death was supposed to be the reason?

Is every bloke accused of rape guilty because there's "no smoke without fire"?

Or do some like a bit of selective choice of miscarriages of justice?

I dare say I've more reason than some on here to hate the Provos but I'm genuinely fascinated why after being cleared by the courts some of you automatically think they are guilty?

Given the specific case we are on about and the pressure on the cops to bring a conviction do you honestly think it's hard to believe that evidence was planted?

David Lock

Just a couple of observations.....

It seems to be "accepted" that the IRA were responsible for the recent £26m bank heist even though no charges have been brought. That seems to be a classic "no smoke without fire" scenario (backed up with on-the-street information I suspect)

One giveaway, to me anyway, is often the police comment after a "miscarriage of justice" that "we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this crime".

For the record I think the Guildford 4 were innocent. DL

moses

good article on gerry conlon blasting the ill treatment of british muslims

http://www.islamonline.net/English/N...rticle06.shtml


Irish Activist Blasts Ill-treatment of British Muslims


“The atmosphere is just like 1974 and 1975 when we were wrongly sent to prison”, said Conlon. (Reuters)

CAIRO, February 13 (IslamOnline.net) – One of the four Irishmen who spent 15 years in jail after wrongfully convicted of a 1974 bombing attack compared the plight of British Muslims nowadays to the ill-treatment of the Irish people in the 1970s, a top-selling British newspaper reported on Sunday, February 13.

“The atmosphere is just like 1974 and 1975 when we were wrongly sent to prison. The only difference is that the color and the religion has changed,” The Observer quoted as saying Gerry Conlon.

Conlon, who received a public apology from British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week, was jailed along with Paddy Armstrong, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson for the bombing of the Horse and Groom pub in Guildford and became known since then as the Guildford Four.

All four were freed in 1989 when the Court of Appeal quashed the sentences, and in June 1991 it overturned the sentences of the other family involved, the Maguire Seven.

Addressing the annual conference of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, Conlon called for public apologies to be issued to all victims of miscarriages of justice.

On Blair's apology, Conlon said: “By making that TV appearance, and by giving us the letter, he has helped wipe away the stigma.”

The British prime minister warned in July against “stigmatizing” the Muslim community because of fears of terrorism.

Some 80 per cent of the 1.6-million-strong Muslim community in the UK have reported experiencing acts of discrimination and Islamophobia, said a recent report by the Open Society Institute.

They specifically complained of the police stop-and-search operations carried out under the Terrorism Act, for no apparent reason other than being Muslims.

Several British parliamentarians admitted last August that anti-terrorism laws are being used “disproportionately” against Muslims.

Muslims in major cities across the United Kingdom launched on November 22, the tenth Islam Awareness Week (IAW) with activities and seminars highlighting their contributions to the British society.

Guantanamo Victims

Conlon, now 51, further expressed his heartfelt solidarity with the detainees at the US Guantanamo detention camp, saying they would carry the social stigma as he and his colleagues did.

“The Guantanamo detainees will have to struggle against suspicion and hostility the way we did,” he said.

Conlon revealed that he told his solicitor Gareth Peirce, who is also a lawyer for a Briton recently freed from Guantanamo, that it would be hard for the men to re-integrate into society.

Peirce is the lawyer of Moazzam Begg, who revealed last month that his US captors had tortured him and coerced him into making a false confession of being member of Al-Qaeda.

Begg, Feroz Abbasi, 24, Richard Belmar, 25, and Martin Mubanga, 32, were freed last month from the notorious Guantanamo jail.

Human Rights Watch said last year that the US forces in Afghanistan and Guantanamo were setting a terrible example in arbitrarily detaining civilians, using excessive force during arrests and mistreating detainees

fast bloke

Northern bank robbery was probably the SAS. The IRA had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Whoever has the money can never spend it, as it will be picked up and traced within hours in our tiny economy. As all the evidence points to the IRA you have to think that this is a set up. You know it was the IRA when all the evidence points somewhere else.

As far as the Guilfodr 4 are concerned, two conviced IRA terrorists admitted to police that they carried out the Guilford and Birmingham bpmbings

Brit_in_Japan

So let me get this straight, after years of trying to get the IRA to complete a full and verifiable decommissioning process you are suggesting the British govt sabotage this by getting the SAS to kidnap bank employees families and rob a bank? I'm sorry, that's not credible. The SAS are military, they don't rob banks.

I can understand what you say about the IRA having nothing to gain and everything to lose. But it has been suggested that the raid was conducted by the IRA as some sort of "pension provision" so that when they destroy all their weapons they will have something to fall back on in their old age. I don't know if that's true or not. One thing that is true is that the IRA was split by the peace process and it's not inconceivable that former IRA people did this without the knowledge of backing of the IRA leadership or Sinn Fein. Even the Irish PM has said the evidence points towards the IRA.