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NY Times Editorial: No Friends of the Irish national |
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news report
 Wednesday April 16, 2003 12:54 by NY Times
 a New York Times editorial April 16, 2003 Five years ago the Good Friday agreement brought a promise of peace and justice to Northern Ireland's long-suffering people. That promise is now threatened by the Irish Republican Army's stubborn refusal to declare a final end to armed combat, give up its weapons and commit itself exclusively to peaceful political persuasion. The I.R.A.'s destructive intransigence has delayed a package of further reforms that Britain, Northern Ireland's ruling authority, was prepared to announce last week, and that President Bush's recent Belfast visit was meant to support. It also sharpens political tensions in the province ahead of elections expected there next month. London and Washington, along with the Irish Republic, must keep trying to persuade the I.R.A. to change its mind. The Good Friday accord ended decades of institutionalized discrimination against Northern Ireland's large Roman Catholic minority. The agreement restored self-government, provided for a power-sharing cabinet and set the stage for a long overdue reform of the province's disproportionately Protestant and notoriously abusive police force. The agreement also allowed Irish republicanism's political wing, Sinn Fein, to enter government and pursue its goals of Catholic civil rights, British troop withdrawals and, eventually, a united Ireland. The clear understanding, though not spelled out in the agreement, was that over time, republicanism's armed wing, the I.R.A., would give up its arms and eventually disband. That still has not happened. Republicans say they have unmet needs, like further British troop withdrawals. London was ready to move on this and other issues if the I.R.A. had agreed to disarmament and permanent peace. New Northern Ireland elections are expected at the end of May. The British and Irish governments had hoped these could be preceded by a package deal that would include an I.R.A. declaration and an announcement of the next round of reforms. If that had happened, power sharing could have been revived and the Good Friday agreement fulfilled. Now, the voting will probably strengthen extremists on both sides and slow movement toward the peace and prosperity that people of all denominations want. The I.R.A. must stop standing in the way.
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Comments (21 of 21)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21The leadership of the IRA are pathetic, pathologically angry people who are also totally implacable: Basically, they have been offered all the concessions they are ever going to be, so if they haven't disarmed volunatrily by now, they never will. They have no electoral mandate to terrorise Ireland and know perfectly well that without weapons, most of which were given to them by that nice man, Col. Gadafi of Libya, they are nothing. Clearly, one day they think they may want to use them again. All that can be done with such dangerous people is to find them and imprison them or take them out, as they are as much of an anti-democratic threat to the Republic as they are to the Brits. I say, the Irish Army should get on with it, instead of just protecting cash deliveries to banks.
Typical Yank rubbish.Why should they disband when all the loyalists keep their weapons.The brit army should get the fuck out aswell.Just because Bush came over the yanks think the IRA should disband immediately and thank the Americans for saving the process just cause Bush decided to jump on the bandwagon.Trimbles party's lack of cooperation has more to do with halting the peace.The loyalists don't want to give up their positions of authority and power that they have enjoyed for far too long as it is.They have fought tooth and nail against any changes that they have had to make.When SF have nothing left to bargain with what will happen then?No movement from Unionists at all,thats what.
The Irish army couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.They'd probably sue if they actually had to do anything.A useless shower of fat lazy cunts is all they are.The Ra would wipe the floor with them.
When, apart from in doublespeak, has "intransigence" ever been "destructive"? Who has slaughtered more civilians in the last thirty days than the IRA have in 100 years? Who, Niall, is being democratic by urging the Irish army to "get on with it" and "take them out" (watching too much war "news" no doubt eh?).
Unionist paramilitaries are orchestrating sectarian warfare in North and East Belfast and claim that they are the ones being terrorised. An RUC army raids Stormont and there is suddenly a massive SF spying ring. Infantile anti-republican enthusiasts like Niall may well salivate over a hard right rag like the NY Times mouthing off about Ireland but it's a bit much to get lectured by a paper in a country that is awash with illegal arms and has ensured that half the world has them too.
Opus dei on the street.
there is no water in Bagdad
there are no books by the river of Babylon.
there is no peace in Iraq.
'Muslims at the Pentagon are incensed by what they say is an insensitive invitation to the Rev. Franklin Graham, who has called Islam an ''evil religion,'' to preach on Good Friday at the Defense Department.'
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/106/nation/Some_at_Pentagon_decry_invitation_to_evangelist+.shtml
There is a peace process voted on by the overwhelming majority of people in NI, including Catholics. You people talk as if this didn't exist and there was no realistic alternative to violence. Get Real: The RA are criminals and sooner or later will have to be dealt with in the South as well.
Again everybody knows where the nytimes website is, correct me if I'm wrong?
But you know, you're allowed give out to these people yourself, you don't have to keep calling me.
I feel that othen the responses to a mainstream posting can be more interesting than the source material itself, so why ban it?
In any case people can still cut and paste and add some comments of their own without quoting a source and post it as their own original work. This is called plagarism where I come from.
To make the analogy with physics:
"Information is neither created nor destroyed but simply transformed from one form to another!"
E'est pas?
kokomero says
"I feel that othen the responses to a mainstream posting can be more interesting than the source material itself, so why ban it?"
This is true which I suspect is why the editors often choose to leave such posts up when they are attracting discussion. However you really don't want the situation where Avi or Anti-Avi can spam the newswire everyday with every mainstream article they imagine 'proves' their point of view.
Demanding original content is one way of stopping this.
Fine as long as this policy is applied uniformly, and without bias, for all.
As for your lofty ideals about originality, if your proposals were strictly enforced I suspect you would see a 90% reduction in postings overnight.
Maybe this is what you want?
If you stopped publishing Palestinian shit that we all know about, 95%of the newswire would be saved.Whats yer problem with this posting.It's a lot more relevant to this country than the same old shit you post up day in day out.
Kokomero I wonder what you want. I'd guess from your posting frequency you are sitting in some boring job that has the perk of internet access. You'd therefore like to see more postings on indymedia to sooth the passage of time. Nothing wrong with that but its not really the function of indymedia.
Now lets assume most visitors have neither free internet access or unlimited time to browse indymedia. What sort of site is better for them, one with 5 locally relevant original mails buried over 4 pages of newswire. Or one where there are only those 5 mails (and others stretching back from that).
The editors have the tricky task of balancing these competing needs. I think they could lean more towards the people who, unlike us, don't have a lot of access.
I would be quite happy to see a serious fall-off in the number of new _articles_ posted here every day. Its a simple fact that, due to the way the site is set up, articles are very hard to find once they get pushed off the front pages. I think a large proportion of the new articles posted here every day could usefully be posted as comments to existing articles instead*. That wouldn't reduce the amount of news posted on here, and wouldn't mean silencing anyone. It would just mean that the news about Iraq, for example, would be easier to find, because it would all be in one place instead of spread over two or three pages. It would also mean that other news stories would be more visible, and variety is always good.
*Of course, for the sake of readability, you shouldn't repost articles that are online somewhere else, just a link and summary.
niall is clearly a bit thick. How can be expect the IRA to decommission all their weapons while leaving the loyalist paramilitaries of which there are many armed to the teeth- to suggest that the IRA be taken out is simply to show how far removed from reality he is.
Joe, whether I have a job or not etc. is no concern of yours, and is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
I understand IMCs wish to streamline posting to material which does not get an airing elsewhere.
Surely, however the fundamental problem is the software (as explained at length by Ray elsewhere), not the amount of material people are posting in a time where there is a war on, which is only to be expected?
Let's try to keep our clam and a modicum of humor in these trying times.
Er kokomero that was an explanation of why different people visiting the newswire are going to want different quantities of news rather then a personal attack.
The problem is not so much software as the fact that someone has to write, install and maintain new software. Until that happens we have to deal with the limitations of the existing software, not pretend that the limitations do not exist.
plagiarism?!
funny to see how anarchists whine and whine in concern about plagiarism of corporate press!
no, seriously, obviously this editorial is relevant to IRISH indymedia, so it should be here, and probably most Irish do not read the new york times on a regular basis.
The problem here is not the people are worried about the NYT's intellectual property rights. I couldn't care less about them.
The problem is that the article is freely available somewhere else. That means there's no need to repost it here. Anyone who wants to read it can go to the NYT site and read it there.
If you want to make people aware of the editorial, then you don't need to post the whole thing - just post a link, and a summary/comment, so people know why to follow it. And instead of posting that link as a new article, find a relevant article on the newswire, and attach it as a comment.
This is indymedia, a site for original news. Not your weblog.
Do you understand the difference between plagiarism and copyright? There is no profit involved in a question of plagiarism, which is purely an integrity/ethical matter, while copyright does involve economic hegemony, restriction of speech, etc - the objection of some people on Indymedia to reposted materal is certainly not based on copyright concerns, and only partially on plagiarism - it also has to do with resources and mandate.
So to say that there's anything inconsistent about an anarchist being concerned with copied stories is just dumb.