The past Northern Ireland insurgency as oppossed to Islamic terrorism what are the differences?

Answer 1

This is a simplification, as these subjects are fairly complex:

At it's base the Irish conflict, although violent and falling under the banner of terrorism, was political. Religion just drew the line but had little do do with the source of the conflict, which was the occupation of a hostile country by a colonial power.

Fundamentalist Islamic terrorism is more wide spread and seems to be about religious and societal differences between the secular and the fundamentalist factions. Unfortunately the occupation of Iraq by the US has added fuel to the conflict, with the US now in the role of Colonial oppressor.

Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists blame everything that they see as wrong or oppressive in their world on Western Society, specifically the US and Israel. If they destroyed all of their "enemies"...what then? I can't see them actually constructing anything...they just seem to want to destroy. The Irish conflict had a finite goal of self governance. I couldn't tell you what the final goal of the Islamic terrorists is.

Answer 2

There is a difference between terrorism for a political reason and terrorism for a religious reason. Just because the terrorists are Christian does not mean it is Christian terrorism. Your example of Northern Ireland is incorrect. The terrorism that took place in Northern Ireland was political. It was Nationalist V Unionist. The Catholic V Protestant is just a dumbed down version because the intricacies of it are far too great for most foreigners to grasp.

Answer 3

The authorities are a lot more stand off the Muslim than the Irish. The problem is that the Muslim have the political correctness brigade on there side which means any police action on a suspicion is seen as a racist move against Asians.

The Irish were subject to a lot of racial profiling and it was very effective.

Fortunately the Muslim ain't as good at building bombs as the Irish are and haven't got the art of multi-bomb high casualty setups correct yet. In fact the Irish were so good that they sold there knowledge around the world.

Answer 4

There is more a common strand if the reality of both is understood.

In the North of Ireland the British ( the Imperial power) backed and funded the working class Loyalists to act as their proxies (but then treated them the same as the 'enemy' in law).

It was a useful testing ground for imperial forces of the NWO

In The "War on Terror" the Islamists are the Western proxies whom they then pin their false flag attacks on.

In both situations the dirtiest war was/is fought by the Imperialists. i.e.. those closest to the Imperialists in the subject regions are their prime victims (patsies).- they also always hypocritically brand their enemies AND (covert) allies as "terrorist"- even though terror and oppression is by far the imperialist's favorite methods and the much greater share of criminal acts are carried out by the Imperialists themselves and with impunity.

Answer 5

I guess there are technically some differences. Suicide bombing wasn't as popular with the IRA as it is with Islamists, presumably for religious reasons. Similarly, decapitations, not really the rage in Ulster. The geographic scope of the IRA's activities were much more limitted. There are considerably more muslims than irish in the world, and I don't remember there ever being a fear that Brittish defesnse against the IRA would lead to the radicalization of Catholics in other countries.

Answer 6

The difference is that the Irish Republican Army was fighting a cause against British oppression and had many supporters.

The Islamic terrorists wants anyone who is not a Muslim,man woman or child dead, their leaders are ignorant, uneducated, don't care who they kill and are reviled by all of the educated people in the world.

Answer 7

Very little. The only real difference (methods excepting) is that the 'Muslims terrorists' - I don't accept they are Muslims - have not told us what they want. I've made this point before in relation to the current wave of terror and what happened a few years back and I just wonder if the vitriol that I see on here about 'Muslim terrorists' was the same as back in the day with Irish terrorism.

Answer 8

Under the N.Irish bombings we had less bullcrap from leaders asking the Irish to publicly condemn "their" terrorists. Under the current Islamic terrorism, we are always hearing people imploring the Muslim community to denounce "their" terrorists, which is ridiculous really/ It's like me asking the white population of the UK to publicly condemn paedophiles and apologise for their crimes (after all, when was the last time you heard of a Muslim paedophile in the news).

Answer 9

If you study the history of Ireland you may understand things a little better, mind you, maybe we should all study the histories of Islamic countries too, see if we can make sense of what's happening in the world today.

Answer 10

Simple ,N.Ireland was part of a nation seeking Independence or union depending on your point of view [remember the irish troubles were internal to britain ] the ira didnt blame the world or a seperate country say for example Islam blames Israel the Irish argument was internal to the u.k.