Should victims of IRA terriosm be able to sue Americans?

Okay today it was announced that the families of the victims of September 11 are going to sue for trillions. They call themselves Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism, the plaintiffs are suing seven international banks; eight Islamic foundations, charities and their subsidiaries; individual terrorist financiers; the Saudi bin Laden Group; three Saudi princes; and the government of Sudan for allegedly bankrolling the terrorist al Qaeda network, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
Now this has me in a right ole' pickle. It is well known that the United States of America IS THE biggest funding of money to the IRA. I know that September 11 was a tragically. It was an awful act of evil, but it is not the only act of evil which has left thousands dead. Over the term of 30 years people in Northern Ireland and Britain have been murdered and maimed in horrible manners since the emergence of the "troubles". Most of these act of horrors were carried out by Paramilitaries and non so active as the IRA and the Real IRA. They have been many, many attacks that have left scars that stretch beyond imagination, both physically and mentally.
Though non of these single attacks add up to the sheer magnitude of September 11, it is important to remember that it is not the amount of deaths it is rather the principal of terror. Attacks such as the Omagh bombing, Prine Charles uncle Lord Mountbatten's death, Bloody Friday and far too many to recollect.

There have been many terrible events in the history of Northern Ireland's conflict, but few have seared the collective consciousness of its people as those on Friday, 21 July 1972, a day that became known as Bloody Friday.
By the end of the day, the IRA's Belfast brigade had detonated at least 20 bombs across the city.

In just 75 minutes of violence, nine people were dead and some 130 more were mutilated, injured and mentally scarred by what they had witnessed.

There have been men and women who vividly recollect people screaming, crying and moaning. The most poignant of all would be the image a torso of a human being in the middle of the street

Police officer at the scene

"From the outset, the IRA's bombing of the city caused widespread chaos and stretched the security forces to the limit"

Such was the scale of the attack, witnesses at the time remember seeing people running in all directions, not knowing where the bombs were being detonated.

As one report at the time described the scene, "it was impossible for anyone to feel perfectly safe".

Car bombs

While the scale of the attack was huge, it was two car bombs that between them claimed the nine lives - one at the Oxford Street bus station in the city centre, the other outside shops in Cavehill Road in north Belfast.


At Oxford St, the busiest bus station in Northern Ireland, four Ulsterbus workers and two soldiers were killed.

When the emergency services reached the scene, they found that some of the victims had been literally blown to pieces, leading to initial estimates of a death toll of 11.

At the Cavehill Road bomb, the victims were two women and a 14-year-old schoolboy.

Of the 130 injured, 77 were women or children out shopping in the city centre. One police officer at the scene recalled the events for the BBC series Provos in 1997.

"You could hear people screaming, crying and moaning. The first thing that caught my eye was a torso of a human being lying in the middle of the street," he told the series.

Collapsed ceasefire

In terms of furthering its cause among nationalists, the IRA's decision to carry out the Bloody Friday attacks proved to be a disaster.

Earlier in the year, the IRA had experienced a massive propaganda and recruitment boost after the Parachute Regiment killed 13 protesters during Bloody Sunday in Derry. Many joined believing that they had no other way to defend their communities.

It required only one man with a loud hailer to clear each target area in no time.

Bloody Friday was part of a deliberate decision to ratchet up a campaign and make no

 

Do you mean sue Americans, as in ordinary people, or sue the US government?

 

Sure, but only the Irish-Americans.

 

LOL.

I really don't know of anyone at all that supports the IRA...

 

See it like this, if Americans can sue the Charities that fund the AL QUEDA can we sue the American charity for funding the IRA, which helped them grow their weapons?

 

First of all, anyone is free to sue. The question is who will win in court.

 

I mean if the Americans can sue the charities who funded the Al Queda can we sue the American Charity Noraid? because it has funded the IRA giving it chances to grow it's weapons?

Following the emergence of the modern republican movement in 1969, the Provisional IRA quickly turned to its Irish-American supporters for funds and guns.

More than 30 years later, those support networks still exist, although the nature of the relationship has changed during the long road of the peace process.

Follow the money

Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson wants to see the strong measures extended to Noraid, which raises money for the republican party Sinn Fein and the IRA, which itself has links with the Provisional IRA.


There's mutual regard between the Irish and the Americans

"Without their funding, the IRA would not have nearly the same potential for violence that it currently has," he says.

Noraid has openly expressed support for the IRA but says it gives money for humanitarian aid, and denies its donations are used for the purchase of arms.

Sinn Fein has, of course, come in from the cold in recent years. It was de-designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US State Department in 1994 after the start of peace efforts in Northern Ireland - a move which allowed its leader, Gerry Adams, to travel to the US.

Humanitarian aid

But other groups perhaps walk a finer line. John McDonagh, chairman of the New York-based Irish Freedom Committee, thinks he is in for a rough ride.


With all these new laws coming in, we could be banned

John McDonagh
His organisation's supporters are sympathetic to dissident republicans who oppose the move away from an "armed struggle" in Northern Ireland, although Mr McDonagh says its contributions only support the families of republican prisoners.

"With all these new laws coming in we don't know what is going to happen. It's possible that it could impact us. We could be banned," says Mr McDonagh, who is one of an estimated 40 million Irish-Americans.

While supporting what many would see as a terror group, he draws a line between the actions of the IRA and those of the 11 September attackers.

"There's no comparison. I don't think it's in the psyche of the Irish to become suicide bombers. The IRA gives warnings before its bombings. What happened here brings it to a whole new level."

Others would point to the fact that an attack by the dissident 'Real IRA' in Omagh in 1998 claimed the lives of 29 civilians, while hundreds of people were killed and thousands maimed in IRA bombings and shootings in more than thirty years of violence. And one would also like to say that they murdered over 500 Northern Ireland and British police and soldiers in cold blood. I see no differnce.

 

Did you write all of that last post yourself, or did you take from other sources?

 

Um other sources but I wrote the first para.
I don't want to sound rued, I just want to discuss a matter which has been bugging me.

 

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander"

Which means... what exactly?

 

please cite sources, with links, if possible. like you did in your first post.


The American lawsuit is without merit or precedent, as far as I know. Why are you trying to recycle a bad idea?

But, Rebecca has a good point. Go ahead and sue. It's a question of how 'will you win'.


And, as Maveric said, if you are not Irish-Catholic, you have no idea about the extent of the support for the republicans. There is widespread resentment in the UK on this topic, and Americans don't have a clue. Therefore, using this topic to indict Americans for hypocracy is to willfully distort the reality of the situation. The only people at fault, I think, are any law enforcement elements or politicians who allowed the activities to proceed.

 

I am not getting at all Americans but the majority of Americans support Republicans. I never said that all Americans were supporting this because that would be idiotic.

 

the majority of Americans DO NOT support republicans, or even have basic awareness that they fund raise in the US, or that IRA money comes from the US. This, I think, is where the big perception gap lies.

In fact, since 9-11, the IRA has been donig VERY poorly in American fundraising. That is why, I think, we saw some concessions from them last winter.

 

40 million are the estimated figures. I am not accussing you of anything. The majority is not correct and what I should clarify is that the majority of Irish Americans support them okay?

 

Where did you get that estimate?

 

"Where did you get this, where did you get that", stop avoiding the issue and debate it! Jeez. The fact is there is a large group of American's, not the majourity of Americans however, that support the IRA and in some cases even provide funds for them.

 

I have links in my first post.

 

Maybe I missread. Are you saying that 40 million Irish Americans support the IRA, or just that there are 40 million Irish Americans?

 

Hey, and Greek-Cypriots can sue the U.S. for the supporting of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Let's all sue everybody!!

 

I got a scratch from the shelf at GameStop the other day. Do you think I could sue them?

 

I got a scratch from the shelf at GameStop the other day. Do you think I could sue them?

LOL!!

Yes, take them for all they got!!

 

Never mind that it's gone already! It hurt! And it was so traumatic!

 

Yes, but if you're still traumatized by it then I think you should still go ahead with your lawsuit. There's no way of knowing how long your mental pain and suffering will continue. They owe it to you to compensate you for the hell these inconsiderate dolts put you through.

 

"Where did you get this, where did you get that", stop avoiding the issue and debate it! Jeez. The fact is there is a large group of American's, not the majourity of Americans however, that support the IRA and in some cases even provide funds for them.


Yes, sue the Americans! They are the ONLY ONES who provide weapons! ONLY THEM! They are the international policeman! Sue them! Take them for all they have! We don't like them!



Unless we really need help because someone bigger than us is scaring us...then...



HELP US USA!!! Your our only hope!! We can't fight for ourselves because



We don't beleive in owning guns...



We are more enlightened than the barbaric Americans...


We don't approve of violence, and as a result do not spend any money on a decent defense...

...or any other stupid reason for not taking care of the situation yourself.


I am sick of people blaming the US for others problems. We need to return to isolationism and see how long it takes for Europe to erupt in a war again and come begging us for help putting out the problems that they cannot.