The attack on PSNI officer John Caldwell

Here’s a caller to the Nolan radio show this morning, commenting on the savage attack on John Caldwell, a senior police officer, shot and critically wounded yesterday in Omagh: “The most evil thing you could do  – to take the life of another human”.

Later, UUP leader Doug Beattie joined a throng of other callers in denouncing, rightly, the attempted killing of the PSNI man. That’s Doug Beattie who described an incident in Afghanistan: “”I never really thought that at the age of 40 I would have to thrust a bayonet through another person and yet I had to do that in September 2006 and I watched a man die at the end of my rifle.”

You’ll notice Doug doesn’t denounce that killing  – as a British soldier he travelled half-way round the world to “thrust a bayonet through another person”.  So it would appear that some killings are “the most evil thing you could do” and some are, well, shit happens.

There was other depressing stuff on Nolan about the attempted Omagh killing. Nolan pulled in the ‘Ooh-aah up the ‘RA’ chant as being the glorification of things like the Omagh killing, all part of the same blood-stained fabric. Which shows how much Nolan understands about the Ireland women’s soccer team and the fact that it hasn’t got a blind thing  to do with the attack on John Caldwell. Likewise Mary Lou McDonald, who has condemned the attack – but who, we were told, had said if she’d been an adult during the Troubles she’d have joined the IRA. Or words to that effect. Right. And if Doug Beattie had two humps and four legs he’d be a camel.

The attack itself is depressing.  But it provided a soap-box for  the Nolan show to connect it with some things and fail to connect it with other things. Oooh-aah up the ‘RA – definite connection. Doug Beattie sticking his bayonet into a native –  completely irrelevant.

No one – or no one while I listened – brought up the fact that Nature abhors a vacuum. What republicans who were engaged in the conflict of the Troubles were told was, there is another way – politics. Working together to resolve problems. What do the people who tried to kill the PSNI man see?  They see politics here disembowelled by the DUP. Stormont is a farce, power-sharing is a farce, international treaties are a farce.

When they see no other way, that’s when people resort to violence. Nature abhors a vacuum.

 

 

5 Responses to The attack on PSNI officer John Caldwell

  1. Oglach February 23, 2023 at 6:17 pm #

    Up the ‘Ra ✊!

  2. ONH February 23, 2023 at 6:41 pm #

    Ironic really.

    The cop had just led a soccer training session.

    But the best bit of shooting all evening came after he’d finished ✊!

  3. Trèfle February 23, 2023 at 7:17 pm #

    In the last couple of weeks a former member of the Crown Forces was let off without even so much as a slap on the wrist for murdering a Republican on his way to a Gaelic field for a game.

    Last night a police officer, and by extension thereof a member of the Crown Forces, was shot by Republicans after leading a soccer training session.

    Don’t cry when the chickens come home to roost!

  4. Jennifer February 24, 2023 at 3:28 pm #

    The usual depressing troglodytes responsing as a man is almost killed.

  5. PaulG February 24, 2023 at 9:45 pm #

    Given the creation of the NI statelet was done in contravention of a democratic vote and enforced through State and UVF violence, Republicans will always have justification for armed resistance to the Statelet.
    But that doesn’t mean they should, for either moral or strategic reasons.

    The last phase of our 800 year struggle for justice and freedom, was precipitated by loyalist and Police violence and murders. Nationalist & Republicans armed to defend and fought back, then widened to conflict to try to finally end the great injustice. Despite being on the Just side, they failed in the face of political realities and southern abandonment, and the ‘long war’ continued much longer than there was hope of any good coming from it.

    It became clear 30 years ago that continuing IRA activity could not bring down the State and was actually pushing a United Ireland further away. Given that Security Forces penetration claimed to interrupt 80% of PIRA operations and many suspected that botched operations resulting in civilian deaths were orchestrated by British agents & informers, logic tells us that no Dissident attack happens unless the MI5 or Special Branch puppet masters, allow it to (or even have their agents instigate it).

    For God’s sake lads, put the guns in the ground. You’re doing your cause much more harm than good and the people pulling the strings are your enemy.