- #1
Schrodinger's Dog
- 835
- 7
Now don't get me wrong I think there is a genuine concern about terrorism, and it's wise to at least be aware of the situation, but do you get the impression that there is just too much hysteria?
I can understand it, no doubt when the IRA first started bombing campaigns on English soil there was probably some real hysteria; having grown up with terrorism and experienced - if not terrorism at first hand - delays to subways and other effects of the threat of terror, such as seeing police armed with sub-machine guns at certain large stations and so on, I know what it's like to live under the threat of terror, I have done so since I was born, or at least since I understood the threat.
However certain people seem to see the threat as major and that they need to be frightened at all times, and worried about the safety of their country, there's no doubt a viable concern, but are some people too worried and who's fault is that? Anyway do you really think there's anything you can do other than take the risks into consideration and just proceed with business as usual, I mean if you actually change your lifestyle to fit around concerns aren't you letting the terrorists win?
In this country(UK) The idea is to carry on as if nothing had happened, even after a major attack the onus is on getting back to a normal routine ASAP. And it's been that way since I can remember, people say, man that was terrible, anyway I'll be at work tomorrow, doing what I got to do.
Is there too much made out of this for political purposes, over here we associate escalation of terror mostly with bad foreign policy, yeah there are other reasons but people aren't necessarily pointing at terrorists as the ultimate and only cause of the actions, where as in some places the opposite seems to happen, it's all the terrorists fault(which of course technically it is) But this does not happen in a vacuum, they don't wake up one morning and think, hmm toss a coin who shall I hate today?
I see too much political machination and to much fear mongering; this can't be good; luckily we're used to terror over here, or at least most are, so we don't get all bent out of shape, we've lived with it for nearly 40 years,many civilians and soldiers died at the hands of the IRA, and many more were injured. The casualties on English soil were only in the hundreds, but in the UK ie Northern Ireland, they were much greater.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_campaign_1969-1997
I can only feel a deal of sympathy for countries such as Israel where the level of concern is much greater, and yet we don't see people reacting in anywhere near the same way, even there? Are some people being manipulated?
Should we take up the business as usual approach, stirred but not shaken?
I can understand it, no doubt when the IRA first started bombing campaigns on English soil there was probably some real hysteria; having grown up with terrorism and experienced - if not terrorism at first hand - delays to subways and other effects of the threat of terror, such as seeing police armed with sub-machine guns at certain large stations and so on, I know what it's like to live under the threat of terror, I have done so since I was born, or at least since I understood the threat.
However certain people seem to see the threat as major and that they need to be frightened at all times, and worried about the safety of their country, there's no doubt a viable concern, but are some people too worried and who's fault is that? Anyway do you really think there's anything you can do other than take the risks into consideration and just proceed with business as usual, I mean if you actually change your lifestyle to fit around concerns aren't you letting the terrorists win?
In this country(UK) The idea is to carry on as if nothing had happened, even after a major attack the onus is on getting back to a normal routine ASAP. And it's been that way since I can remember, people say, man that was terrible, anyway I'll be at work tomorrow, doing what I got to do.
Is there too much made out of this for political purposes, over here we associate escalation of terror mostly with bad foreign policy, yeah there are other reasons but people aren't necessarily pointing at terrorists as the ultimate and only cause of the actions, where as in some places the opposite seems to happen, it's all the terrorists fault(which of course technically it is) But this does not happen in a vacuum, they don't wake up one morning and think, hmm toss a coin who shall I hate today?
I see too much political machination and to much fear mongering; this can't be good; luckily we're used to terror over here, or at least most are, so we don't get all bent out of shape, we've lived with it for nearly 40 years,many civilians and soldiers died at the hands of the IRA, and many more were injured. The casualties on English soil were only in the hundreds, but in the UK ie Northern Ireland, they were much greater.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_campaign_1969-1997
According to the CAIN research project at the University of Ulster [62], the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,821 people during the Troubles up to 2001. This figure represents 48.4 percent of the total fatalities in the conflict. 621 of these casualties were civilians. A total of 1,013 were British forces; 465 from the British Army, 190 were from the Ulster Defence Regiment (a part time local British Army reserve unit), 272 were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, 14 were former Royal Ulster Constabulary members, six were British Police, 20 were Northern Ireland Prison Service officers, two were former prison officers. A further 35 were loyalist paramilitaries (21 Ulster Defence Association (UDA), three former UDA, 11 Ulster Volunteer Force). Six were Gardai and one was Irish Army. About 180 were republican paramilitaries, including 12 Official IRA members, one Irish People's Liberation Organisation member, 63 alleged informers and 103 accidental deaths of Provisional IRA members due to premature explosions.
One study calculates that of 1706 victims, 340 were Northern Irish Catholics, 794 were Northern Irish Protestants and 572 were not from Northern Ireland.
Another detailed study, [63] gives the following figures for people killed by the Provisional IRA up to 2004: 644 civilians, 456 British military (including British Army, RAF, Royal Navy, and Territorial Army), 273 Royal Ulster Constabulary (including RUC reserve), 182 Ulster Defence Regiment, 163 Republican paramilitary members (including from the IRA), 28 loyalist paramilitary members, 23 Northern Ireland Prison Service officers, 7 Gardai or Irish Army, and five British police officers (Lost Lives, page 1536). Lost Lives therefore concludes that the Provisional IRA was responsible for a total of 1781 deaths to date. It has also been estimated that the IRA injured 6000 British Army, UDR and RUC and up to 14,000 civilians, during the Troubles [64].
The IRA lost 276 members during the Troubles according to the CAIN figures. Lost Lives states that 294 Provisional IRA members died in the Troubles [65]. In addition, many members of Sinn Féin were killed, some of whom were also IRA members, but this was not publicly acknowledged. An Phoblacht gives a figure of 341 IRA and Sinn Féin members killed in the Troubles, indicating between 50-60 Sinn Féin deaths if the IRA deaths are subtracted [66].
In roughly 123 of these cases, IRA members either caused their own deaths. Eight IRA members died on hunger strike. Another hundred or so were killed by their own explosives in premature bombing accidents - 103 deaths according to CAIN, 105 according to an RUC report of 1993 [67]. Thirteen were killed on allegations of having worked for the security forces (CAIN). Lost Lives gives a figure of 163 killings of republican paramilitary members (but this includes bombing accidents and feuds with republicans from other organisations) [68]. Most of the remaining 200 or so IRA killed were by the British Army, followed by the RUC and then the loyalist paramilitaries.
Far more common than the killing of IRA Volunteers however, was their imprisonment. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop estimate in The Provisional IRA (1988), that between 8-10,000 Provisional IRA members were, up until that point, imprisoned during the course of the conflict, a number they also give as the total number of IRA members during the Troubles [69]. The total number of Provisional IRA members imprisoned must therefore be considerably higher, once the figures from 1988-1998 are included.
I can only feel a deal of sympathy for countries such as Israel where the level of concern is much greater, and yet we don't see people reacting in anywhere near the same way, even there? Are some people being manipulated?
Should we take up the business as usual approach, stirred but not shaken?
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