Britain’s earlier refusal to call the IRA struggle a war protected civilian status

Evidence

But the reclassification of the struggle with al-Qaeda as “war” is another factor that promotes, inspires and legitimates terrorism, a factor perhaps no less significant than the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. For example: it used to be the case that the British government refused to accept that it was “at war” with the IRA; it was the IRA who made that claim. The unwillingness to concede that Britain was engaged in war partly had the effect of making it possible to claim both that the IRA were terrorists (i.e. BY DEFINITION not a group with whom one could be at war) and that any attack on the civilian population was an outrage visited on innocents. But if indeed we ARE at war (as the oxy/moronic War on Terror would have us believe), and if what “we” are fighting for is “our values”, and “simply getting on with our lives” is an expression of those “values” — as, since Thursday, we have endlessly been told it is — then it would follow that we are all indeed warriors co-opted into War on Terror. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1429

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Official naming of the Algerian conflict shaped military honors and refused war status; Social legitimacy of violence explains IRA versus RAF organizational and class differences — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4077

Broader Connections

• Official naming of the Algerian conflict shaped military honors and refused war status #corroborates (0.92)
• Social legitimacy of violence explains IRA versus RAF organizational and class differences #expands (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4077