IRA terror victim speaks out against (Rep.) Peter King

[sabra]

Source: Salon

Now that Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has assumed the chairmanship of the House Homeland Security committee and is promoting hearings on Muslim "radicalization," there's been a burst of media coverage surrounding his decades-long support for the IRA, the Irish terrorist group, which he broke with only recently, in 2005.

But for Tom Parker, an official at Amnesty International in Washington who hails from Britain, the distaste for King is personal. As Parker notes in a new Op-Ed, and explained further in an interview with Salon Thursday, he survived an IRA terrorist bombing in 1990 when he was 21.

"I have no problem with his support for a unified Ireland. What really bothers me is the hypocrisy of the man," says Parker, who is now policy director for terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights at Amnesty International USA.

It was King's designation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a terrorist that prompted Parker to go public. Parker himself is critical of Assange, "but to call him a terrorist when you have supported people who actually blow stuff up, it seemed to me that that was really beyond the pale," he says. "This is a guy who is happy to bully other people when he has a whole crowd of skeletons in his closet on this issue."

...

Parker, meanwhile, lays out this standard for assessing terrorism in his Op-Ed:

That problem is simple: if your test for whether or not terrorist violence is acceptable is whether or not you agree with the cause that it furthers, you will never have the moral authority to condemn such acts when they are carried out by others. The use of violence against innocents must be wrong in whatever form it takes. Take any other position and you are open, as Congressman King undoubtedly is, to charges of hypocrisy.


Read more: http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/01/07/peter_king_ira_bombing_survivor

[azurnoir]

1. Few had any problems with the open and unmitigated

support of the IRA in the US, but let any any Muslim or Arab group try to raise money or give any support to poor Muslims or Arabs especially Palestinians and it's supporting terrorism

[molly77]

2. You are only a terrorist if you are a leftist.

[11cents]

15. The provisional IRA was certainly leftist.

Leftist in the "national liberation front" style of the 1960s through 1980s, secular, vaguely Marxist, supportive of similar "national liberation fronts" like the PLO, etc.

So that's what King was supporting, in addition to supporting murderers of course. He was a left-wing terrorist.

[still_one]

7. I disagree with that assessment. Most people did NOT approve of the IRA terrorist acts here /nt

[Xithras]

9. Agree. My grandfather was an open and ardent IRA supporter for years. Financially too.

He was Irish by heritage, and he ended up with a real distaste for the British after visiting the country during WW2. When he became financially successful a couple of decades later, he started funneling a serious chunk of change to the IRA.

Up until the late 1980's, nobody cared at all, and most people were generally supportive of the idea. After all, he was supporting "freedom fighters", which is as American as apple pie and baseball. Of course, he mostly traveled in Irish-Catholic circles, where support for the IRA was a bit higher anyway.

In the late 80's it started to get harder to donate money to them, and by the early 90's he had to give it up completely because of new laws that added new penalties to the behavior and made it easier to find people doing it. Socially, however, he was never chastised for it. Even people who disagreed with him "understood" and "sympathized" with his position and wouldn't really call him out for it, and he was unrepentant up until the day he died.

There was definitely a double standard.

[Agent William]

13. I've heard similar accounts of that.

Most of the money that was collected usually nevr made it to Northern Ireland, but was instead pocketed by people running a scam to fight a perceived British occupation. It's not just Americans, but many in mainland British contributed to the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein. And a double standard indeed... Could you image the outrage if any politician or anyone of high social stand in stood up for the Palestinians?

[Xithras]

17. Without getting this booted into the I/P forum..

Let me just say that I wish more politicians WOULD stand up for the Palestinians.

That said, my grandfather never really talked about what he saw, or what happened to set him off. According to relatives, he didn't care one iota about Ireland before WW2, but came back home with a genuine hatred for the U.K after the war. My grandfather was a very kind, generous, likeable man in most regards, but he had a hair-trigger for all things British. He even went off on me once when I was a teenager for having a damned Police poster in my bedroom, ranting that listening to "British music" disrepected my ancestors and my "fellow Irishmen". Being a smug teenager, I couldn't resist pointing out to him that half of my Dad's family is British, so AVOIDING that music because of its origins would have been equally disrespectful. He didn't speak to me for a month after that :)

To be honest though, I'm just as guilty as anyone else when it comes to the double standard. I was in college when he finally stopped donating, and though I strongly disagreed with his support for the IRA, I don't remember ever once actually challenging him about it. I doubt it would have made any difference anyway.

[Violet_Crumble]

18. But Peter King was supporting the IRA, not standing up for the Irish...

What he was doing was the equivalent of someone supporting Hamas and being into fundraising for Hamas. I don't know why it was so difficult for many Americans to understand that the IRA were a bunch of terrorists who murdered innocent people and being opposed to them didn't mean that people couldn't support the Irish. Even here at DU, I've seen some attempts to romanticise and minimise what the IRA did, like when a few people tried to argue that the IRA wasn't nearly as bad as Palestinian suicide bombers because the IRA very nobly gave warnings before their attacks....

When it comes to that King hypocrite, very little leaves me gobsmacked when it comes to US politicians, but it's actually pretty scary that someone like him who openly supported terrorism has any sort of connection with Homeland Security...

[whathehell]

40. Mistaken again, Violet...There were, in fact, not "so many Americans" doing this

There were a handful..a mere handful...The minuscule number who did offer unreserved support were disappointed.

Being alive, adult and in America in 1969 when the "troubles" re-emerged, I think I can speak credibly to the matter.

To view the issue in context, you would have to start off with the event that kicked off the highest level of IRA support/sympathy in this country, and that would be the 1981 Hunger Strike. If you know anything of American and British history, you know that it occurred during the Reagan Administration, more precisely, the era of the Reagan/Thatcher Alliance...If King was involved, he would have been exceptional on at least two levels: for being American, and for being a member of a party and a two nation conservative "movement" that strongly denounced the IRA.

The anger and sympathies that were aroused were countered by, not only the aversion most Americans feel toward political violence generally, but by many of the IRA tactics specifically....Had Americans needed "more" to discourage them, they had that "special relationship", strengthen immensely by above mentioned political alliance...In terms of monetary support, they had to confront a law that stipulated groups donating to IRA-related causes had to register as members of a "foreign agency".

This supposed "support" for the IRA, was GREATLY exaggerated by British politicians..Any one here who followed the matter can remember their frequent appearances on national television, in which they lectured us, with characteristic officiousness, on the immorality moral of "supporting terrorism". Most Americans sympathized with them, but their outrage and indignation were in such inverse proportion to the reality, they were sometimes mocked as caricatures of themselves.

I'm exasperated by the fact of these misconceptions have continued and that they have apparently been recorded as historical "fact". It's simply not true.

*Such groups were very few..A tiny group called "NorAid" is the only one I recall.

[JDPriestly]

20. When I lived in the UK in the early 1970s, I often heard the

term "Irish" used to refer to some worthless, despicable person.

In fact, the Irish people were abused by the British for centuries.

The hatred of the Irish against the British and the contempt the British had for the Irish is very hard for us to understand.

But we need to acknowledge it and try to understand it because it is the hatred on the one side and the contempt on the other that arises when an imperial power, a mighty military power, exerts its influence and governance on a conquered people.

That kind of action by an imperial power, regardless what power it is, regardless how well-meaning it is, regardless how democratic its own government is, results in anger by those people in the conquered country who feel demeaned and powerless under what the conquered people perceive as the boot of the imperial power.

The anger is very much the feeling of an abused spouse who is too weak and powerless to defend her- or himself, but seething inside. It is the feeling of the abused child whose parent beats him or her.

So, we need to approach angry people, whether the Irish, with calm and respect but also with the firm intention to stop the violence on both sides that engenders and reacts to the sense of oppression.

Respect for the autonomy of others whether nations or individuals while at the same time expecting and insuring respect for one's own autonomy is what is needed.

Rep. King is way off balance. He does not understand this concept.

[Violet_Crumble]

21. So why is it that Americans seemed to only understand that 'feeling' if it's about the Irish...

How would that 'feeling' not apply to Palestinians?

[Lars77]

33. because the Irish are white. nt

[PatSeg]

35. And "Christian"

Christians can't be "terrorists", just angry or misunderstood.

:sarcasm:

[JDPriestly]

36. Because many Americans have Irish ancestors.

That's who built many parts of the US. We refer to many of them as "Scotch-Irish."

[Lars77]

41. The Scotch-Irish are protestants, mostly from Ulster. nt

[whathehell]

43. You are correct, sir. n/t

[JDPriestly]

47. That happens to be my ancestry. But just plain Irish are even more

common. And Scotch-Irish sometimes is a mixture of Scottish and Irish ancestry.

[Riftaxe]

22. When i was in London in '82, the IRA used bombs to

kill 11 people, with the obvious intention to kill many more. I was always amazed at the coverage in the British media when showing the aftermath of the explosions, you would never see scenes like that on our censored and sanitized American Media outlets.

[mwooldri]

23. The evening news on BBC NI or Ulster Television was pretty gruesome most nights IIRC.

No I didn't grow up in Northern Ireland but I got to learn a whole lot more when I went to university and learned first hand about "the troubles" from people who lived them and grew up with them.

Mr. King has not lived under terrorism, excepting of course 11th September, 2001.

[whathehell]

42. Since you weren't in the States during that time, you didn't experience the coverage here..

I did..and there was nothing "censored" or timid about it.

Of course, the coverage was more extensive in the U.K..Their citizens were directly impacted...If it was less "graphic" that had more to do with cultural mores than American concern.

Britain is our closest political ally and as noted in another post, this occurred at the outset of the Reagan Administration, an administration that had particularly close ties with Margaret Thatcher.


The coverage was EXTENSIVE.

[murdoch]

53. The English used bullets to shoot children in north Ireland

Plenty of children were killed by English bullets in north Ireland. What are the the English doing there in the first place?

If the English army is in north Ireland shooting down women and children, then thankfully some people have courage enough to strike against the English. Of course, IRA targets tended to be against military and political targets, with warnings given otherwise. The women and children shot dead in north Ireland by the invading army got no such warnings.

[westerebus]

29. There was this one fellow.

Jimmy Carter.

Human rights advocate.

Self determination for the Palestinian People.

[Agent William]

31. +1

Damn we need him back.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[whathehell]

32. Few "who"?..Republicans or Americans in general?

I don't know about the former but as an American who was an adult at the very inception of "The Troubles" I can assure you that Americans "in general" did NOT support the IRA..

A number of Irish Americans were sympathetic towards the IRA's goals and were sympathetic toward their prisoners during the Hunger Strike of 1981, for instance and they called out the Brits regarding their historic role in the whole mess, challenging Thatcherite "line" on the matter, but almost ALL drew a line against acts of murder, knee capping and other particularly violent acts.

It would be ironic in more than one way if King was a supporter since his party's leader at the time, Ronald Reagan, had a close relationship with Thatcher, and most definitely did NOT support them.

[westerebus]

49. I guess that would depend on you ancestry.

The Boston Irish did support the IRA.

The New York Irish did support the IRA.

The New Jersey Irish did support the IRA.

The Chicago Irish did too.

So, you could say not all Americans supported the cause, mostly the Irish supported the Irish.

As my dear grandmother would say: Bloods thicker than water and don't be puttin' none in the whiskey.

[denverbill]

3. Hypocrisy only bothers people with consciences.

Republicans wear hypocrisy like a badge of honor.

[Solly Mack]

4. k/r

[LeftishBrit]

5. I had been struck by this hypocrisy for a long time.

[RoccoR5955]

6. Peter King should be impaled

Hoist upon his own petard, if you will... He's not only a hypocrite, he's an idiot!

[SoapBox]

8. I am more concerned about these Radicalized Republicans...

They are more of a danger to the future and stability of
America...We have the FBI, CIA and DHS; they can take
care of looking at terror threats.

We don't need the Hater to waste our money by putting on
circus side-show hearings.

Wake up America.

[valerief]

10. We must have faith in King's mendacity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=132560&mesg_id=132560

:rofl:

[Lions_fan]

11. King was also a supporter of the more violent INRA

King served as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee from 2005 until the Republicans lost their majority in the 2006 mid-term election. During his last stint in that post, King used his influence to intervene on behalf of Malachy McAllister.

McAllister, like many Catholics in Ulster, endured inexcusable treatment at the hands of British occupation forces and Loyalist thugs. He admits to committing the acts for which he was incarcerated, but describes himself as a combatant in a civil war, rather than a terrorist. That distinction is difficult to defend in light of the fact that McAllister was a member of the Irish National Republican Army (INRA) -- the military wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).

Whatever the merits of the Irish Republican cause, the INRA was not created merely to obtain independence for Northern Ireland, or to defend the rights of an abused minority. The group, which budded off from the "official" IRA in 1974, was a tiny, ultra-violent Leninist cell within the IRSP. While the Party specialized in political agitation, the INRA carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, and other forms of "direct action" that frequently targeted helpless civilians.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/

[provis99]

30. so Protestants defending their homes are loyalist thugs?

As a Southerner descended from Scotch-Irish Protestant immigrants, like 20 million other southerners, I am sick of this glorification of Catholic terrorist and the put down of Protestants, who have every right to protect themselves from terrorists.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

38. Well aren't you special.

Both sides share equal blame in the conflict, don't try and pretend the Protestants had the moral high ground.

[LeftishBrit]

52. Quite; and if Peter King had supported the UDA or other Protestant 'paramilitaries' i.e. terrorists,

that would ALSO make him a hypocrite.

However, in his case it happened to be the IRA.

[whathehell]

59. Yes...and I'm glad you noted the "paramilitary" moniker given the UDA

as contrasted to the "terrorist" one given the IRA.

The UDA and other Protestant "paramilitaries" were always given that morally neutral title.

Only the IRA, who reportedly killed far fewer than the UDA, were given the "terrorist" tag

in American news accounts which, of course, came out of the London News Bureau.


Sheer coincidence, I'm sure.;)

[LeftishBrit]

62. No sympathy for either group from me.

Whatever genuine cause the IRA might have had at one time, by the 70s and 80s they had degenerated into a bunch of violent gangsters. And ditto for the Protestant terrorists.

Fortunately, most from both sides finally decided to make peace in the process culminating in the Good Friday agreement. One of the political miracles of our time.

[whathehell]

63. That's good.

[XanaDUer]

39. When you take the train up from Dublin to Belfast

once you pass the border into the north, the protestants put up anti-catholic hate signs in their back windows so Catholics can see them.

So, the blame is on both sides.

[whathehell]

44. Absolutely...not to mention the fact that the Brits encouraged it, at least for many years

by favoring the "loyal" protestants in jobs and housing and turning a blind eye to "traditions" like the July Holidays when protestants routinely marched through Catholic neighborhoods, hurling anti-catholic epithets, and rubbing their noses in their relative privation, sometimes throwing PENNIES at them!

The Catholic Nationalists took a LOT of SHIT before they started fighting back and the Brits were NOT the "impartial" bobbies they'd have the world believe...Those with an irish catholic background knew the history of their older relatives, and a number challenged the Brit propaganda...and No, that's not the same as "supporting terrorism"...It's supporting fairness, fact and historical truth.

[XanaDUer]

45. What WTH said

amen

[whathehell]

46. Thank you, XanaDuer...

There's a few here who could improve their knowledge of history, British and American.

[westerebus]

48. Had the Brits left all of Ireland in 1922 the wouldn't have been the troubles.

[whathehell]

50. Yes, especially since they reneged on a promise in that years treaty to leave after 60 years..

Even my veddy British professor couldn't defend that.

[westerebus]

54. Must of slipped their mind.

They were busy in 1982 defending themselves from Argentina.

[whathehell]

56. Good one!

[westerebus]

60. Thanks

:toast:

[alp227]

12. But Peter King would rather listen to relatives of 9/11 victims

who claim indirect injury from that "Ground Zero Mosque", right?

[Agent William]

14. I can sleep at night knowing

That the IRA is now universally considered a terrorist group, and nothing more. I remember when they were blowing up children and killing people walking out of pubs, but yet an alarming number of people still supported them. I still run into their apologists every now and then, but I'm sure it's nothing like it was.

BTW, k&r

[whathehell]

51. Yes, but do you remember the Ulster Defense Association (UDA)

who did the very same to the Catholic Community, and whom the British refused to disarm?

Interesting..I can assure you that most EVERYONE in America has heard of the IRA

While VERY few (due to that "special relationship"?) know of the UDA, a "loyalist" organization that,

according to published accounts, murdered THREE times as many people as the IRA.


I don't apologize for heinous acts on anyone BY anyone...I do support balanced reporting, though.

[murdoch]

55. How many children were shot by the English? Many.

The streets of the six counties of north Ireland are littered with the bodies of children shot by the English Army. And what are the English doing in Ireland anyhow? The English are who decided to come to Ireland to begin this row, not vice versa. And thieving English continue their terrorist occupation of north Ireland.

At least the Muslims stood up against British imperialism on 7/7. You want to live by the sword and invade other countries, you get to die by the sword. And the Muslims aren't as polite as the Irish are as they act at an equivalent level of violence as does the British Empire.

[whathehell]

58. Yes...including the seven unarmed teenagers shot dead by British troops on Bloody Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(Northern_Ireland_1972)

[Altoid_Cyclist]

16. Something's a little off when Gerry Adams gets to dine at the White House

and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) gets mistaken for a possible terrorist on a flight to the US.

[mwooldri]

24. Definitely wrong.

Though I am glad that I got to see one thing in my lifetime: Gerry Adams at the same table as Rev. Ian Paisley.

But kicking Cat Stevens out? Something is rotten in the United States...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. Gerry Adams married one of the Kennedys.

[jaybeat]

19. Sounds like you're a "freedom fighter" if the people you're fighting for are white

And a "terrorist" if the people you're fighting for are brown.

Nice.

[TxVietVet]

25. The conservanazis love terrorists.

Look at the ronnie raygun selling arms to TERRORIST Iran. Look at the "contras" in Nicaragua. Terrorists. It's okay to label combatants they like as "patriots" yet anyone else fighing for "freedom" is a terrorist in their eyes today.

They are quick to label like their leader druggie limballs.

They can't understand why anyone would call conservative republikans "conservanazis".

[riverbendviewgal]

26. This reminds me of some other whistle blower

Sibel Edmonds did report there were American politicians who were being blackmailed when she was translating wiretaps as an FBI translator...The Bush government got her out of the FBI...

\http://www.examiner.com/independent-in-madison/exclusive-interview-with-fbi-whistleblower-sibel-edmonds-to-appear-this-week


I wanted to see what has happened to her

\http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

She had her own website but nothing after 2009.
.\http://www.justacitizen.com/
but
I found this website she has now which is a very current
new website. I am glad she is still alive and still writing.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/tag/sibel-edmonds/

and last but not least. what about all these other people on this movie?
Iraq Uncovered.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7371253996117324045#
If you saw the movie THE GREEN ZONE recently, having seen this movie would have enabled you to understand the movie much better.

[mwooldri]

27. I share Tom Parkers' distaste.

Think about this:

Mr. King's actions funded the organization that nearly killed Baroness Margaret Thatcher (then Prime Minister).

Mr. King's actions funded the organization that bombed Harrods, Canary Wharf, the London financial district, centre of Manchester, many pubs where Army soldiers were said to frequent, and more places besides.

Mr. King's actions funded the organizations' purchase of mortar bombs from Libya, and fired said mortar bombs at Number 10 Downing Street.

Mr. King's actions funded the organization who at one time devised the "proxy car bomb" - kidnap a person, and force them to drive their vehicle to a destination, where the car (with driver) will be detonated. (though this practice was discontinued because local nationalists were appalled at this).

Mr. King's actions funded an organization that killed 0.12% of the population of Northern Ireland. In contrast, 9/11/2011 killed 0.0016% of the American population. About 0.2% of the NI population died because of "The Troubles" on all sides. Extrapolated across the US population that's about 500,000 Americans.

However I know "The Troubles" have ended (for the most part) and I got to remember that bygones must be bygones but it still is distasteful to me.

Yes, Gerry Adams has shook hands with Rev Ian Paisley, and Rev. Paisley and Martin McGuinness had a good working relationship in the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Yes there is relative peace.

However I feel Mr. King should at least step down as chairman of the committee because his judgment is clearly impaired and I feel he poses an actual risk TO Homeland Security because of the simple fact that I feel homegrown terrorism is a bigger problem than the perceived threats from the Middle East. Leave that to Hillary Clinton at the Department of State.

[mackerel]

28. When the PIRA killed Robert McCartney things changed

with the funding and support of the IRA, Sinn Finn and the PIRA. Once you start killing your own then you've gone beyond the pale. As they say, violence begets violence.

[Speed8098]

34. I can't stand that jerk..............but

Leaving the IRA out of the topic for a moment I just have one question.

In todays world, how do you think the founding fathers of our country (USA) would be catagorized?