I wrote this post lamenting hypocrisy in the Western world with regards to the IRA case. As expected only non - Europeans and non-Americans supported my opinion.
I would have been pleasantly surprised if someone from those two categories had come forth and said yes I agree with you Highlander, the United States IS hypocritical in its stance towards this issue and the involvement of its own citizens and organisations in the terrorism that the IRA perpetrated decades ago; and the Irish need ALSO to bear responsibility for these atrocities, because they are both the PRIMARY sources of funding.
Only reader Craig said: " It's very odd. I can't find any mention of the compensation payments the Irish made for IRA terrorism? I even tried a variety of Google searches. Nada. Every hit comes back talking about Libya. I find it completely baffling that the British would demand compensation from a secondary source when they haven't gotten any compensation - nor appear to have even sought any - from the primary source."
That's not bad as comments go :) at least he acknowledged something ( but against the Brits), I'm not sure if I should give him the benefit of the doubt that by 'Irish' he meant Irish-Americans :P most probably not and though I'm glad he noted the above I still wish the British Government had the guts to ask American citizens for compensation for the victims of IRA terrorism funded by their money and have a delegation from Northern Ireland visit the US and Ireland to talk about this and show them how their material support has hurt people. I mean they can get the names of every individual who transferred money, like they do when I transfer more than 50$ outside Libya and it has to go through US banks before going to the florist in Britain with whom I ordered flowers for a friend's party!
Instead we have to suffer this ignominy and alone pay the price for the other two countries who were the major contributors to the conflict ! see below:
The proposal includes substantial business and infrastructure investment and wide-ranging community development projects aimed at bringing closure for those who have suffered in the past, including resolution of existing claims by UK citizens involving Libya."
We will probably end up paying more than Italy's measly 5 billion $ (over 25 years) for actually decimating the Libyan population, ridiculous indeed .
Can you tell I'm 'upset' :P
5 comments:
Hi Highlander,
As far as Americans being prosecuted and or sued for supporting the IRA, the US did prosecute many people for that during the 1980s and 1990s. The problem is that the IRA was on the same list with HAMAS prior to 9/11. I don't recall what the two lists are called, so I'll just call that the "lesser terrorism" list. As opposed to the "severe terrorism" list, which is the one Hezbollah and al Qaida have always been on.
This made it legal to do fund raising (usually disguised as charity) for terror groups. HAMAS got away with it too, to a much greater extent! In fact I've seen a lot of complaining that HAMAS fundraisers in the US have been getting prosecuted, since they are on the "severe" list now! There's no way to retroactively prosecute people for things that were legal at the time they did them, even if they aren't legal now! That's the only reason Sami al Arian isn't serving a life sentence right now! But that's for another discussion...
My baseline assertion is that there isn't much the US government could have done against the IRA that was not done. Except, put the IRA on the worse list! I can't really explain why groups like the IRA and HAMAS (and some other Palestinian groups) were not considered a severe terrorism problem. I suspect its based on the degree of threat to the US that they are considered to pose.
So... anyway... I feel bad about the US hypocrisy of going after Libya and not the UK or Ireland. US courts can't go after the UK or Ireland because neither has been designated a state sponsor of international terrorism. Somehow it seems much worse to me when the UK goes after Libya instead of holding itself or its neighbor primarily responsible, though.
I can't imagine if a group of Mexican nationalists in the US were engaging in a terror campaign, and supported by Mexico with some secondary support from Bulgaria (that was for you, Maya :P) that we when things settled down we'd shake hands with Mexico and agree to let bygones be bygones - and then go after Bulgaria for compensation. Seems wacky. And grossly unjust.
Thanks, Craig :-).
Highlander, I do think that you have some right (I say "some" because my personal opinion is that you go quite far along the anti-US street). However, I did not mention that I give you some right because it would be an encouragement for you to continue blogging on these subjects. And my personal preferences as a reader go to other posts (though of course I am not to tell you what to blog about).
When Bulgaria agreed to forget the Libyan debt in order to settle the problem with our accused medics, I was not quite happy and I mentioned this two or three times, but I never wrote a post on the subject. (I wrote a series of posts about the case, but none specifically devoted to the money.) I also decided not to write about Michael Shields's hero welcome in Britain - I just mentioned it on your blog.
These are all events we think shouldn't have happened. It seems to me some events that shouldn't have happened must be extensively covered and remembered, while others are best to be left in oblivion. It is difficult for me to say how I distribute the unliked events across the two groups. Partly by consideration whether talking about the event is good or bad for the future, mostly by intuition. Of course it is only my intuition, and it may be wrong anyway. So, if the blood money wanted and taken from Libya is among the top 60 things about Libya you wish to see changed, then YOU are right of course.
Hi
Sorry to say this, but unlike the opinion of the post author and t comments written before me I see some fairness in these claims
just my own opinion
All ways a stranger - thanks for the comment. Would you care to elaborate your opinion?
I see from "Stranger"'s profile that he is from Libya.
I guess he is more concerned about his country's actions than about her treatment by the outside world.
This reminds me of the orphanage issue in Romania and Bulgaria. In the 1990s, in Romania (but not in Bulgaria) some journalists blew the whistle about the outrageous plight of children in orphanages. Then EU coupled Romania's integration progress to improvement in orphanages. Some Romanians were indignant that Romania was treated worse than Bulgaria (where the situation was not a bit better), complained of injustice and called the journalists unpatriotic. Others were more concerned about the children and didn't care much about justice (if it means to be treated no worse than others doing the same thing).
I suppose "Stranger" would be inclined to the latter opinion if he were a Romanian.
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