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TALLRITE BLOG 
ARCHIVE

This archive, organized into months, and indexed by
time and alphabet, contains all issues since inception, including the current week.

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November 2005
bulletISSUE #112

ISSUE #112

bulletIRA’s ‘Legitimate’ Targets
IRA’s ‘Legitimate’ Targets                                12th November 2005

On 12th November, the inimitable Mark Steyn accorded me Letter of the Week for the submission reproduced below, though he left out the links.  Devin Leonard's letter, to which mine refers, has gone from Steyn's website but I've preserved a copy below, charmingly entitled You’re Anti-American Scum.  It was a hugely emotional diatribe that claimed that the IRA killed only legitimate targets not civilians.  He was attempting an indignant response to a Steyn column in the Jewish World Review, These Irish eyes are smiling at White House snub of IRA”, which rejoiced at Gerry Adams' exclusion from George Bush's St Patrick's Day party earlier this year in favour of the sisters and fiancée of murdered Sinn Féiner Robert McCartney.  Mr Leonard, who is a fireman, concluded his rebuttal by recommending that Steyn have a fire extinguisher rammed up his butt.

Letter of the Week
THE IRA’S ‘LEGITIMATE’ TARGETS
From Mark Steyn's Mailbox, 8th November 2005 (approx)

That was an, er, interesting letter in your mailbox from the Irish-American armchair-patriot-firemanDevin Leonard of Turbeville, Virginia, who says that the IRA's victims were "mostly Soldiers, Police and UDA/UVF members, in other words ... legitimate targets". 

You might with to refer him to this illustration of three decades of killings in Northern Ireland.   I constructed it for a blog post from data found in David McKittrick's “Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died Through the Northern Ireland Troubles”, Mainstream Publishing, ISBN: 184018504X. 

Killings in Northern Ireland
 
Behind the numbers in my chart lie the following. 
 
Republicans (IRA and its associates) suffered 397 of their own number killed.  In reply, they killed 2,157 people, of whom so-called "legitimate targets" were made up of
  1. 818 policemen and soldiers from both Britain and Ireland,
  2. plus 377 assorted loyalists. 
The balance of Republican victims comprised
  1. 802 ordinary civilians and
  2. 160 of, extraordinarily, their own men. 
 

Excluding the "own goals", civilians thus constituted over 40% of the Republicans' victims.  No other party to the conflict killed so many civilians or such a high proportion. 

 
Mr Leonard is talking tosh.  I hope that that fire extinguisher doesn't prevent you from disabusing him (or whatever the word is). 
Regards,
 
 Tony Allwright
Dublin, Ireland

YOU’RE ANTI-AMERICAN SCUM
From Mark Steyn's Mailbox, 8th November 2005 (approx)

As a proud former US Marine (1st Force Reconnaissance Co.) (15th MEU), and proud Irish American...I wish to express my disgust for the article These Irish Eyes Are Smiling, For White House Snub of IRA.  

Only someone with the vast stupidity and ignorance of Mark Steyn could have written such a piece of shit.

Here are a few facts for the obviously racist and idiotic Steyn.

1. Sinn Fein is a LEGALLY recognized political party. This is the first time they have not attended St. Patrick’s Day festivities at the White House in 10 years. This has far more to do with the fact that George Bush and his inner circle are anti-Irish pussies, who like to suck up to the Brits, then it is does any legitimate grievances with Sinn Fein or the IRA.

2. Seeing as how the JWR is known for it's GOP "Ass Kissing" and racism, it's not surprising that a JWR "hack" like Steyn would propagate these types of administration lies.

3. Like the brave Jewish soldiers of the Irgun and Stern Gang, the French Resistance, and the great American Revolutionaries...The IRA is a legitimate guerilla army fighting against oppression and injustice. Unlike the REAL terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaida, the IRA has killed mostly Soldiers, Police and UDA/UVF members. In other words they killed people who would be legitimate targets in any war. My Force Recon unit targeted these same types in both Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and never once were we considered terrorists.

4. The IRA has killed civilians, but then so did the Jewish Irgun and Stern Gang, the French Resistance, and even the American Revolutionaries...I never hear any condemnation of these attacks by Israelis, Jews, French or Americans.

The reason for this is simple: Unfortunately innocent people die in all wars, we killed 500 innocents in Kosovo. We didn't mean to, but that's the way war is.

I find it strange that Republican cowards and anti-American scum like Mr Steyn, always talk about the IRA while never mentioning the Loyalist terrorists of the UDA and UVF, who have (according to the US State Dept.) killed several hundred more civilians then the IRA has...and yet are apparently ok because they represent Britain as opposed to Ireland. If the IRA are terrorists, then the Jewish groups that fought against the Brits are too. In fact, so are the KLA, Northern Alliance, French Resistance, and even our own American Revolutionaries...Now, I don't know about a puke "wanna-be Irishman" like Steyn, but I consider those groups to be anything BUT terrorists. Sinn Fein will ALWAYS have the support of the vast majority of Irish Americans. As for the IRA, they are patriots who kicked the shit out of the British for 30 years, and unfortunately...they were justified in doing it.

I am sick of right wing, panty wearing faggots like Steyn, insulting their own people. If Mr. Steyn has any guts (which we all know he doesn't) he can come out to the Turbeville Fire Dept in South Boston and talk his anti Sinn Fein shit with a bunch of us REAL Irish American patriots. And he can bring some of those "Pussy" Brit soldiers he gets whiney ass E-mails from. We will give him and his "Brit Buddies" an old fashioned Irish "ass whippin" and send him back to the JWR offices, with a fire extinguisher up his butt...Which come to think of it, probably would be something his faggot ass would enjoy.

Devin Leonard
Turbeville, Virginia

THE RACIST IDIOTIC WANNABE IRISH PANTY WEARING FAGGOT REPLIES: A note to all readers in the Turbeville area: If your house is on fire and the fire truck shows up without an extinguisher, at least you’ll know where to look for it – although whether that counts as improper storage of municipal property is something you should take up with your elected representatives.

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