h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Gradient,

I have a problem with the last statement that you made.

"If we had bombed the capital city and one major city of a nation we knew to be harbouring and aiding members of the IRA, do you know which two cities we would have hit?"

I cannot see how we would harbor terrorists. I cannot see how we would in any way shape or form be aiding them.

explain.

Linus,

I find it depressingly funny that you can call me rude and yet still use the term. Common terminolgy....lol. How ridiculous!

So we all know that the IRA had its funding apparatus, it's official trainingh camps and governmental support in the US (which is bizarre as they were suposedly a Marxist organisation) but does that make actions against the US reasonable - i'm not sure. Does it constitute an 'unofficial declaration of war'? - I don't think so.

Just as 'the enemy of my enemy is not my freind' the friend of my enemy is not bnecisarrilay my enemy also. Politics and economic make strange bedfellows and you have to judge who you side against on an individual basis.

However, the US threatening to bomb military, economic and infrastructural targets in August was an undenialble declaration of war, and if in response to that threat of war, the events of Sept 11th were a reasonable military action in response.

The question is whether military responses are what we want at all, whether they are a necissary evil or just an evil.

The IRA were little more than a debating society in the early to mid sixties, and had we (the British Government) not stepped so hard on the civil rights movement - fighting fire with fire - the official and provisional IRA's would never have been a force again in Irish politics.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be leart there hen these bombings prove to be the straw that broke the camels back with hundreds of Anti-American, anti-imperialist individuals around the globe. We are sowing the seeds of revolution here, and it's not going to be a pretty one.

A lot of their funding comes from America, but I don't think the American government is supporting the IRA.

"The IRA were little more than a debating society in the early to mid sixties, and had we (the British Government) not stepped so hard on the civil rights movement..."

I was under the impression that the troops were originally sent into Northern Ireland to protect the Catholics after attacks by loyalists upon the civil rights movement. After a while things got a bit messy, no doubt, but I think the intentions were honest.

The US government did allow the training camps and fund raising, and the purchase of weapons within the US, though this isn't support in the way that the arming of the contras or Irael might be, it's still support in terms of non disaproving or stopping it (there's a word for this i'm desperately trying to find and is eluding me - i know i'll remember it as soon as i hit the send button).

Catholics Civil Rights and the civil right movement in Northern Ireland were suppressed in the main by the RUC - which was effectively the British givernments agent in the Republic, at this this Northern Ireland was essentially and independent collony, it had, essentially dominion staus, and only after Ms Devil's suggestion did it become part of the UK constitutionally in the early '70's.

I don't think the British Government wanted to suppress the Catholics any more than they did any other working class minority, but they were guilty of not monitoring the practices of their own policemen on the ground. And of not listening to those that they had simply labelled as trouble makers. These attitudes were largely bourne of anti-Irish bigotry in the English ruling classes.

Subjugation? Probably not. It was a word I was trying to think of earlier today in another forum. Now that post is posted, and I'm left with a spare word.

I would guess the word you're looking for would be something like compicit?

The deal with America is that our legal system always tilts things in favor of the defendant. Without, due process of law, we can't deprive anyone of their money or porperty. We can't just look at an organization and say they're terrorists. We have to be able to prove it.

Now they're freezing some assests. I'm not exactly sure how they're going about that.

A good way to start would be for the FBI to go around the bars in Boston and confiscate all the IRA collection boxes.

It's an interesting point that in British Law, if bin Laden had been living here, we wouldn't be able to extradite him to the US.

Not that the US ever eally wanted him extradited anyway.

"Condone" was the word i was looking for.

"Sowing the seeds of revolution" - and how is that going to happen then? A few thousand religious fundamentalist nut-jobs waving banners and beating an effigy of George Bush (originality really isn't their strong point) and shouting "Death to USA" before being beaten up or shot dead by police sent by the US-backed government?

There's no chance of these minority groups (and they are minority groups - like most of these groups they can make a lot of noise) overthrowing their governments. If you look at any successful revolution in history - the American, French, Russian, Iranian - they were all fairly inevitable and pretty well-signposted.

Really. You couldn't extradite him to the United States? Why is that?

Perium,

If you read my posting you will see that all i did was explain the common usage of the word. If you don't believe that the word Yank is commonly used in Australia and elsewhere to refer to Americans you will be in for a rude shock should you ever travel over here.

I have no problem with calling someone using the word a*****e rude

Because you have the death penalty. As we don't have it we can't sentence him to death by sending him abroad to be tried.

And we certainly wouldn't send anyone anywhere without evidence, and neither would the US.

I didn't realise the UK only had a conditional extradition treaty ie: only if the crime is not serious enough to warrant the death penalty in the US.

doesn't sound right

If the Taleban had asked America to extradite it's women for wearing make up, and parding themselves in a shameless fashion, to face the hideous punishments they would have found there, i can only hope you'd have told them were to go!

Equally we can't (currently) extradite someone for a crime if the punishment they would recieve is one disprortionately different to that which we consider reasonable.

They wouldn't be sentencing him to death. He'd just be bound over to trial here. Once a trial started, the presumption of innocence comes into play. He has to be found guilty. Then, there will be a seperate hearing to detemine the punishment.

I'm not all that familiar with international extradition. I know that within the states, little evidence is required. If I arrest an out of state fugitive, I go before the judge the next day for an fugitive warrant. All I have to prove is that there is a warrant in another state, and that this is the person whose name appears on the warrant.

ANd it's not the treaty that rules this, it's our constitution.

I know that we've had conflicts with France about that sort of thing before.

Oh everybody's had conflicts with France, i didn't know you needed a reason though...