As you pointed out, they are hardly a unified movement making it impossible to completely quash. There will always be factions or splinter groups garnering support no matter what happens. After 9/11 the world looked at political terrorism in a different light and became less empathetic to it (especially the hypocritical Yanks). Suddenly the IRA was faced with a world that no longer had any patience for them, yet they still exist and they still fight on. If 9/11 couldn't kill them off then nothing will in my opinion.

Well Bernie, I am interested in your response here, as at the end of the day you are in the perfect position to pretty much live anywhere you like. Single, skilled, footloose and fancy free. So where is your haven/heaven?

The hardliners need to be appeased. Strike a balance. But many also know that causing genocide will lose them support too. What about all those tiddly-diddly - 'look at my lucky charm' Yankees in NE America and their funds?

Outfits like PIRA can only exist in liberal western democracies as their foes fight them with one hand tied behind their backs. How they would fare against the battle hardened UK special/intelligence forces in the 2nd decade of the 21st century is a different matter - in a world intolerent of terrorism. Intelligence gathering (electronic and human) is now in a totally different league.

Good luck to the Micks if they ever decided to kick off again because they would need it.

Yer funny

I wonder if anyone would care to comment on the role of the opposing paramilitary groups of the period? Were they considered necessary as local homeland defense heroes, or as equally dangerous as their IRA counterparts? Should it have been left up to the British army to handle the situation?

Thanks.

The british army/government handled the loyalist terrorists rather well,they engineered their every move/asassination/supplied weapons/intelligence etc etc.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=4615

This article would seem to support this contention.

Why?

Cause you may well be an intellectual on the computer but when it comes to the real life of terrorism and how to combat it,you dont know shit,with all due respect to an armchair observer.

Why would they give a warning?.... Oh, I dunno, perhaps because they thought killing hundreds of people in a single incident might harm their cause... just guessing like. I'm sure somebody as smart as yourself will give me a better reason.


Perhaps they were all glaziers on the side?

Most of the opposing paramilitary groups there, while they may well have portrayed themselves as 'local heroes' were, for the most part, nutters. Unless you were there it's difficult to realise just how much the opposing communities hated one another. Left to their own devices they would have given the events that unfolded in Yugoslavia a run for its money.

Delusional.

Far from it my friend, I was an infantry soldier for 2 years and spent a year on counter-insurgency combat operations in Namibia/Angola. I did 4 rotations with Fireforce (heliborne, fast response COIN). I've fought and killed terrorists, so I do know something about this and am far from an 'armchair observer'. We've discussed this on here before so please get your facts right.

I stand by what I wrote in the post you replied to.

I agree with you that it would be exceptionally difficult for known terrorists, and many of the guys in Ulster were 'known', to operate with the amount of surveillance available now. I'm sure it wouldn't prevent all terrorist acts, random acts are and always will be, impossible to stop, but it would make things very, very, difficult to run an organised campaign.