London Attacks!

[keptinthedarkfans]

McGuiness was something of a Parodox I think

He was. I was living in London when the IRA were bombing it. Worked not far at all from where a bomb went off in a McDonalds and there were regular bomb scares.

In Kilburn near where I lived there were pubs where they collected money for the IRA.

I always felt McGuiness was the most ruthless and chilling of the more notorious IRA leadership. He was an IRA commander when Mountbatten and 18 soldiers were killed on the same day. Yet in later life he put aside the guns and took the political route even becoming friends with Paisley.

I saw Norman Tebbit was one of the few dissenting political voices saying he was not going to mourn his passing (to put it mildly). His wife was a victim of the Brighton hotel bomb and has been paralysed ever since.

I can understand that on a personal level. I am sure any relatives of the over 1,700 victims of the IRA won't be sending flowers to McGuiness's funeral though I think even some of them have more about them then Tebbit and recognise talking to McGuiness and the IRA has led to a better situation than stubbornly carrying on fighting. So on a political level it shows Tebbit up. What would he have done had it been him in charge when McGuiness and Adams were making overtures to the British government to end the shooting? Tell him to sod off because of his wife? How many more would have died if he had?

It takes real guts as a politician to do the unpopular things for the greater good such as pardon IRA members as Blair did but he would not have had the opportunity if McGuiness and Adams had not changed tack.

Ironically I don't think Gerry Adams has liked the praise given to McGuiness. He has said he didn't have a road to damascus conversion. I don't doubt McGuiness was still an Irish Republican through and through but I think he had totally abandoned violence.

Unfortunately I don't think we will be getting any McGuiness like conversions away from violence with Isis. They are not after a political solution to anything. They just want us all dead.

Spot on. Well put.

[morley pie eater]

.....the problem is multiculturalism, the end

Rubbish. He was born here. As was the person who murdered Jo Cox and he was White/British. They are both peas from the same pod.

:eusa2: :eusa2: :eusa2:

[morley pie eater]

Nelson Mandela was the head of "Umkhonto We Sizwe", the armed wing of the ANC. He will have authorised many bombings and terrorist acts. It's easy for us to see him as a great man because most of us are far removed from families of innocent people killed in these attacks. Also we're more likely to share Mandela's rejection of apartheid.

I'm not making a straight comparison with McGuinness, though some would. However, the current peace in Ulster could not have been achieved if Blair's goverment had insisted on pursuing justice against McGuinness. What was the greater prize?

For once, and only once, I'm with Blair on this.

[fozzieskem]

Nelson Mandela was the head of "Umkhonto We Sizwe", the armed wing of the ANC. He will have authorised many bombings and terrorist acts. It's easy for us to see him as a great man because most of us are far removed from families of innocent people killed in these attacks. Also we're more likely to share Mandela's rejection of apartheid.

I'm not making a straight comparison with McGuinness, though some would. However, the current peace in Ulster could not have been achieved if Blair's goverment had insisted on pursuing justice against McGuinness. What was the greater prize?

For once, and only once, I'm with Blair on this.

Why not? The comparison is a fair one in my opinion both turned to peace and that is what will be remembered while mindful of their younger days.

Blair he's another paradox of a person,in one stroke he had sorted,to a degree the Irish problem only to go blindly towards Iraq a few years later,I will say this,Iraq and Saddam should have been sorted out in 1990 to turn back was lunacy,the leaders of the world created the Saddam problem back then,and like it or not it was a problem that would have to be dealt with at some point.

Trouble is as we now know it was "dealt" with spectacularly badly but again that was something that should have been sorted in 1990.

[i'm spartacus]

I wouldn't have had any problem with Blair or his good Friday Agreement if his 'amnesty' would have applied to both sides.

As it panned out, it was only applicable to the IRA, everyone else was still fair fame

[josie andrews]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a- ... e-10091053

Had to share this brilliant video from Andrew Neil.

[moto748]

Finding it hard to imagine 'brilliant' and 'Andrew Neil' in the same sentence!

Appalling man.

[moto748]

And having watched the video I see nothing to change my mind.

Rich and privileged man says the rich and privileged aren't the important ones. Yeah yeah yeah...


And as for bringing in WW2, the fact is that plenty of the rich and privileged thought that Hitler was a top fella, and would have been happy to cut a deal with him before, and indeed, during the war.

[josie andrews]

I don't usually get involved with politics so I don't know what you infer about Andrew Neil.

I just thought what he is saying is what a lot of us think about these monsters who commit these cowardly acts in the name of religion.

[Wandering Warrior]

At one time, I would have probably had a long drink on the death of McGuinness. I've had smiley faces texts from more than a few of the lads I served with. Like I say, I thought I would have reacted totally differently to the way I did.

Now I've developed into having a deep seated dislike for Blair. First for the sellout that sees service personnel prosecuted while killers walk free or are not pursued. And more recently because the current ISIS led terrorist campaign which has propagated and flourished from the massive void created in Iraq by the Bush/Blair war on terror.

I don't think it's unreasonable to draw the conclusion that the spate of attacks across Europe have flowed directly from turning Iraq into an ungoverned melting pot of varying Islamic factions which formed a breeding ground for the terrorists.

I think you're spot on there. Blair has never volunteered his kids for the forces unlike the Queen!! I'm not a royal but they do the "Action Man" thing, even if somewhat protected.
I've done tours of forces bases in Kraut with a band when I was much younger and I've seen how they work and play, at the time it was a regret I perhaps hadn't took that path, particularly as I could still have pursued my engineering vocation.
However life is about what ifs? Even if we still shud have took the the penalty kick against Giants on the hour mark!!