Sept 11: Four Years On

Along with itsrobert, you have the required level of impartial and critical analysis needed to work for BBC, ITV or Sky News on issues on geopolitical significance.

Congratulations.

3,000 people were killed in the 20 main years of the Troubles.

Facts x archiveTV = lacking.

I don't dispute that but relatively few were killed by bombs. According to the University of Ulster the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,706 people. 497 of these casualties were civilians with the rest being members of the Police or armed forces. A large number were shot. So check you facts before you make snide comments.

On 9/11 nearly 3000 civilians were killed in two horrible hours. Why can't you see the difference.

Don't let your hatred for George Bush and all he stands for, hatred I share, get in the way of your compassion for the total innocents who died in the 9/11 attacks.

In no way am I justifying the IRA's bombing campaign, but their actions were / are rooted in centuries-old bad blood between Ireland and Britain. Remember that the province of NI only exists because it was annexed by invading English Protestants from the mainland and that thousands of inhabitant Catholic Irish were either killed or displaced in the 1600s and 1700s, just like thousands of inhabitant Scots were killed or displaced by the invading English armies under Edward I and the thousands of inhabitant Welsh were killed by the English armies under Edward II. Wales and Scotland, fortunately, retained their identities. NI's indigenous Catholics are struggling to assert theirs and, through organisations like the Provos, used violence.

The only solution is to abandon any semblance of Britishness or Irishness, Protestantness or Catholicness, Unionism or Nationalism. Which would be like asking an American to burn the Stars and Stripes.

The IRA's terrorist campaign was brutal and unnecessary. Similarly the UDF, LDV and other loyalist organisations' "enforcement" of the Protestant occupancy is totally antagonistic and provocative. The antiquated Orange Order parades are completely without merit and act only in the same, lording-over-the-manor fashion. The Protestants are rubbing the Catholics' faces in the dirt. NI is a societal quagmire, where everything that is wrong about religious diversity and social difference combust in a giant cauldron of suspicion, hatred and division.

Moving onto 9/11, America's foreign policy had given enough countries and societies in the world reasons to be resentful or harbour hatred. The unnerving support of another invaded, annexed land - Israel (Palestine) - causes friction in the very heart of the Middle East. However another feeling - envy, jealousy - also compounds the problem. America is everything the extreme Muslim hates - and wants to destroy.

9/11 was not deserved by America, but America was a cause of it. There is an important differentiation here. Whilst the root of a problem may be as guilty as anything else of causing the event that follows, an act of retaliation such as 9/11 is wholly undeserved. It merely compounds the problem and leads to the situation we have today - a polarised world distrusting each other with equal regard. The IRA bombings were not deserved by England, but England was a cause of it.

Therefore my conclusion is that 9.11 and the IRA campaign are to be held in equal regard, contempt, sadness and anger.

Edit - The governments cause the problem, the people suffer because of it. That's pure militant Socialism. Scary.

I do have complete and total compassion for the innocents on 9/11. They did nothing to deserve it.

However, until I see threads similar about the dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc etc etc, I am forced to conclude that you view the lives of Westerners more highly than that of Arabs and other brown-skinned folk.

Please don't think I'm having a go at you. I promise I'm not. All I am pointing out is that we are force-fed that America, Britain, Israel are the "innocent" victims of blood-thirsty towelheads who hate us because of "our freedom", and not our policy of propping up military/dictatorial/racist regimes and that our victims are somehow "more innocent" than those "Muslim twats".

As Gavin said, the fact that Americans often ask why others in the world hate them is telling enough.

Although I agree with you about the role of governments in these conflicts, the question I often ask myself is "when does a nation deserve it?"

I am talking about what the enemy views as a "nation" which often includes civilians, not what we view as a nation.

For example, did the Battle of Britain justify the bombings in Dresden or Japan? Were the innocents in Germany really as innocent as those in the UK? Of course they were, but why do we not view it that way. Why are their civilian casuality figures simply "collateral damage" yet when terrorists attack us it is a "fundamental threat to our existence"?

According to various estimates, between 20,000 and 100,000 civilians have died since the start of the Iraq war. 500,000+ died as a result of UK and US sanctions. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered, tortured or made refugees. All of this has been done with the tacit support and active involvement of the UK and US.

If their civilians are made to pay for our crimes, is it really so absurd to believe that our civilians will be made to pay for our government's crimes?

[quote="Alexia"]

Spot on.

Those posters above who are point scoring off each other in a "well more died so it was worse" playground fight fashion should be ashamed of themselves.

The phrases "caught in the crossfire", "unavoidable side-effect" come to mind, although a frightening notion purported by some in the US is that anyone killed as a result of "targeted" bombing was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was considered an enemy, even in a repressive regime like Saddam's where people were forced into dangerous situations. (e.g. working in a munitions factory or government building, or even one of his palaces).

No nation deserves the wrath of another, but until better methods of removing governments at will is concocted, the antiquated blitzkrieg method developed by Germany's fascists and continued by Washington's neo-fascists will reign.


BTW I'm an agnostic socialist pacifist.

What mad ****.

So if someone kills my relative, and I go off and am responsible or culpable for killking that person and 10 of their relatives, both of us who killed are just as bad as each other and I am not worse even though I killed many more? People like you forget that the ordinary people of Iraq and Afghanistan were no more responsible for the terrorism than we, the British public, were for invading their countries. Both were done against our wishes.

Your lack of respect for human life shames you, "sir".

If you truly believe the first statement, you are no "agnostic socialist pacifist".

Every single human life lost to terrorisom and war is a tragedy. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I was making the point that those arguing about which attack is more "important" just in terms of numbers killed are misguided - for the simple reason that each person killed is a disgrace to humankind.

What I am most angry about is that you come on here and make up a disgusting tirade suggesting I am ignorant of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that I have no respect for human life, and to call my view "****" is appalling. You have absolutely no idea about my views on those matters - SO STOP MAKING WILD ASSUMPTIONS and don't get so nasty.

I quoted only one part of the post that I'd agreed with - whatever else was in that previous post I purposefully did not quote.

[quote="Pootle5"]

I think you misunderstand. What isrobert and myself were trying to explain was why 9/11 is treated as such a major event, and that is because it was on a scale unprecedented. The whole world stood still and watched. I know I did, where were you on the day? It wasn't just because it was in America or because Americans were killed. Don't forget many different nationalities and religions were killed that day.

Off course every death is a tragedy. However if one person is killed by a big wave it's not news. When hundreds of thousands are killed in a couple of hours its massive news.