Nearly had to kick my radio in listening to the Today programme this morning

[Sir C]

In what sense were the IRA beaten?

SAS and 14 Int persuaded them they couldn't win militarily

[Pokster]

Tony Blair's damp-eyed, husky-voiced eulogy for the Butcher of Bogside would have made a goat puke. Repulsive pieces of shït both.

Serves you right... should be listening to Radio 2's 24 hrs of 80's music... quailty tunes imo

[Herbette Chapman - aged 15]

SAS and 14 Int persuaded them they couldn't win militarily

Winning militarily was never their objective C - they were a terrorist organisation. I'd say they were reasonably successful at that.

Who is this 14 Int by the way? /

[Burney]

In what sense were the IRA beaten?

They were riddled with informers to the highest levels of the Army Council. Equally, electronic surveillance had come on in leaps and bounds, so British security forces knew about most of their operations before they happened. They were reduced to attacking soft targets in NI and the British mainland involving either rogue units (like the Real IRA) or cells who weren't reporting directly up the chain of command. Problem with that was that it led to appalling publicity from catastrophic events like Omagh, which lost them funding from American dipshîts. Once 9/11 happened, of course, the game was up completely, since their funding simply stopped overnight and they were rendered pretty much impotent.

That, of course, is the thing: it would be basically impossible for the IRA to resume a sustained campaign of violence now even if it wanted to. It hasn't got the money, it no longer has the arms and it hasn't got the personnel.

[redgunamo]

SAS and 14 Int persuaded them they couldn't win militarily

It's the onset of middle-age, innit. Those practical arguments chaps would've roundly dismissed only a short time before suddenly begin to ring true and make sense. I've seen it all over the world.

There always seems to come a point when a chap wants to just cash out, grab his girl and go off and live a quiet life. Very few want to keep running and fighting forever. The ones that *do* want to carry on quickly end up dead

[Burney]

Winning militarily was never their objective C - they were a terrorist organisation. I'd say they were reasonably successful at that.

Who is this 14 Int by the way? /

Incorrect. They did want to win militarily. They failed utterly in that objective. Effective peace terms along the lines of the Good Friday Agreement were on the table in 1974, but the IRA and Protestant paramilitaries kiboshed them. The IRA then went on to pursue war for nearly a quarter of a century more because they didn't want civil rights, equality and peace, they wanted the Brits out and they believed they could achieve that by violence. They couldn't. Ergo, they lost.

[Sir C]

Winning militarily was never their objective C - they were a terrorist organisation. I'd say they were reasonably successful at that.

Who is this 14 Int by the way? /

The Det. Special forces surveillance detachment. I don't know if they continued operations after Ireland.

[Burney]

It's the onset of middle-age, innit. Those practical arguments chaps would've roundly dismissed only a short time before suddenly begin to ring true and make sense. I've seen it all over the world.

There always seems to come a point when a chap wants to just cash out, grab his girl and go off and live a quiet life. Very few want to keep running and fighting forever. The ones that *do* want to carry on quickly end up dead

Of course it's always necessary to make deals with the devil for peace. There's no such thing as unconditional surrender in conflicts like Northern Ireland, since the resentment such a conclusion would engender would only breed more conflict. So I don't condemn our politicians for ending the conflict by the means they did (although allowing murderers out of jail and general amnesties stick in the craw). However, I refuse to tolerate these airbrushed fond farewells of a man who has that much blood on his hands.

[Sir C]

Of course it's always necessary to make deals with the devil for peace. There's no such thing as unconditional surrender in conflicts like Northern Ireland, since the resentment such a conclusion would engender would only breed more conflict. So I don't condemn our politicians for ending the conflict by the means they did (although allowing murderers out of jail and general amnesties stick in the craw). However, I refuse to tolerate these airbrushed fond farewells of a man who has that much blood on his hands.

The chap who murdered Louis Mountbatten got out, didn't he? I wonder how Her Majesty felt, having to shake hands with McGuinness.

[redgunamo]

Of course it's always necessary to make deals with the devil for peace. There's no such thing as unconditional surrender in conflicts like Northern Ireland, since the resentment such a conclusion would engender would only breed more conflict. So I don't condemn our politicians for ending the conflict by the means they did (although allowing murderers out of jail and general amnesties stick in the craw). However, I refuse to tolerate these airbrushed fond farewells of a man who has that much blood on his hands.

At some point, everybody just wants to move on, I think, and that seems to be part of that process.