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[scrdest]

Daily Mail as a source. Oh my. I guess that means he was one of the good guys after all.

He was a terrorist and a child murderer. Whether you think his later efforts toward peace atone for that or not, it's not really something to be flippant about.

Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene. He had been in town with his babysitter, shopping for a Mother's Day card. The second victim, 12-year-old Tim Parry, was gravely wounded. He died on 25 March 1993 when doctors switched his life support machine off, having asked permission to do so from his family, after tests had found minimal brain activity.[6] Fifty-four other people were injured, four of them seriously.

Oh come on now, 'child murderer' is transparently manipulative. I'm not going to try to defend terrorist bombings, but this kind of sophistry ticks me off.

There's a clear insinuation being made here that the situation was along the lines of 'Hey, a three-year-old. He looks Wrong Irish, I'll go shoot him' rather than the child being a random casualty.

And the beauty of this phrasing is how perfectly deniable the underlying insinuation is, isn't it?

[Helgoland]

That's whataboutism,  Helgo. We were talking about Martin McGuinness, not the Paras, if you hadn't noticed.

It's not whataboutism, it's calling someone out on their partisanship. Funnily enough the partisanship here is directed against the actual partisans*. Go figure.



* For a given value of partisan. I don't mean to defend terrorists here.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Given the nature of insurgency and the difficulty of halting political violence, anything that successfully folds terrorists into a non-militant political group is laudable, regardless of the crimes committed by the insurgency or counter-insurgency.

[redwallzyl]

that doesn't mean they are not responsible for the deaths of innocents and they should never forget that. if you want to want forgiveness you better mean it.

[TempAcc]

Not to mention the public outcry such things cause. People aren't easy to forgive anyone they don't consider sufficiently punished, specially if they were never punished, which is one of the major reasons as to why the "peace treaty" with the FARC went to shit. People don't want the FARC to become some political party, they want them to be hunted and punished as the drug dealing kidnapper terrorists they are.

[Helgoland]

That's a fairly narrow analysis, I think. Look up South Africa's Peace and Reconciliation program - it's more about closure, not punishment in the sense of revenge.

[Arx]

Truth and Reconciliation Commission, not peace, but yeah.

[Strife26]

It's no different that Columbia cutting a deal with FARC or Hirihito not being hung in 1948. People are willing to trade justice for peace.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As they should be. For an individual justice is more important, but for a society peace is almost always more important, and in the end terrorism is a societal problem.

[martinuzz]

Meanwhile in Turkey, Erdogan continues ranting and takes it a step further.

"If Europeans do not change their attitude towards Turkey, Europeans will no longer be able to safely walk the street, anywhere in the world"


Seems he wants to become the next IS.

[martinuzz]

British parliament session has been interrupted because there currently is a shootout going on outside it.
A parliamentary spokesman said at least two people were shot. A photographer has said he saw at least 12 victims lying at the nearby Westminster Bridge.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/schietpartij-bij-brits-parlement-vergadering-stopgezet~a4477617/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-gunfire-reported-outside-houses-10076492

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39355940

[Erkki]

British parliament session has been interrupted because there currently is a shootout going on outside it.

Shouldnt that be impossible, because there are almost no guns in UK?

[martinuzz]

Almost no legal guns is not the same as almost no guns. Gun control became impossible with the Schengen borders

[Erkki]

Almost no legal guns is not the same as almost no guns. Gun control became impossible with the Schengen borders

That was the point. I'm sure the british feel safe solely because they have so few guns.

Anyhow. Looks like someone drove into crowd and there was a simultaneous stabbing. And either the stabber or the car driver has been shot dead.

[Erkki]

https://twitter.com/AuroreItalie/status/844566407551569920?s=09

Looks like the bridge is still full of bodies and wounded.