Conference tallis::celt

    Leaprechauns have vague figures.
    
    British Army in N.I.  15,000 approx.
    RUC : 8,000 (all armed)
    UDR : 6,000 (all armed)
    
    Irish Army : 9,000 (not as well equiped as the B.A.)
    Gardai     : 8,000 (less than 20% allowed to carry arms).
    Irish Army Reserve : (15,000 only armed on occasions of call up
                          - and of doubtful capability).
    
    Snake gives approximations.
    

    
    
    As Mark Twain once said:
    
    "There are liars, damn liars and statistics"
    
    JO'R

    ref: 2
    
          .......and some statistics paint a very clear picture of a
    police state, nothing less---nothing more!
    
    slan, 
    Kevin

    
    
    re: .3
                 
    I agree.
                 
    In .2 I was only making a general statement about statistics by
    quoting Twain.  I didn't intend to question the numbers presented
    in an earlier reply.                                   
                  
    Example: When you hear that a certain food product is dangerous
    to your health - but what they don't say is that you have to drink/eat
    1,000,000,000 helpings of whatever it is in three days to get cancer!!
    (a slight exaggeration there!)
    
    JO'R
        
    JO'R

    
    	While we're on the subject on statistics, police states, etc.,...
    I wonder how many active IRA members there are in Northern Ireland,
    not to mention the fundraisers, etc. here in the U.S.A....
    	Also, how many PLO, KGB, Red Brigade, Baader-Meinhof, and Libyan
    agents might be mucking things up a bit more than they already are...
    	Just a thought...
    
    			Dave

    Re: .-1
    
    Statistics on IRA membership, funding, and arms are frequently printed
    in US newspapers and US television networks.  Statistics concerning
    the number of British soldiers in north of Ireland are not printed,
    That is the reason for leaving out the IRA from my base note.
    
    The British information services currently put the number of hardcore,
    active IRA members at about 500-600.

    George

    REF: 5
    
         Ahhhh....one of the last identifible subscribers to the Claire
    Sterling School of International Conspiracies!  While we're all
    about this numeric roundabout, I'd be eternally grateful if the
    connection between all of these highly nefarious organisations could
    be explained to those of us who feel that the answer might be a
    bit nebulous as well as slightly irrelevant to the base question.
    Oh, and while you're at it, could you please inform us as to whether
    we should consider your response in light of the "red scare" idiom,
    or as further proof "positive" that the Irish Republican movement
    is merely a client of:
    A. Radical Right-wing elements.
    B. Radical Left-wing elements.
    C. Designated subversive element of your choice.
    
         The clear statement of the numerical strengths of the varied
    elements shouldn't cause rancour unless, of course there exists
    some subliminal rationale for guilt ridden antagonism which serves
    perhaps to divert, but hardly to clarify  

    
    	In re: .6,
    
    	Thanks for the explanation as to why the IRA stats were not
    there with the rest; although I have sometimes seen the stats on
    British forces printed in U.S. papers, I will concede readily that
    the stats and other information on the Ulster police, constabulary,
    paramilitary, and outright terrorists is lacking most of the time.
    
    	In re: .7,
    
    	The short answer is that U.S. and British intelligience reports
    over the years indicate quite clearly that some of the IRA armed,
    revolutionary factions have trained with, and received financial,
    political, intelligience, and weapons support from elements of the
    Libyan government, the P.L.O., and the Soviet K.G.B.  Less tangible
    evidence exists for connections to the Cubans, Sandinistas, and
    Iranians; what there is seems to be more in the sense of that often
    quoted "revolutionary solidarity of all oppressed peoples", etc.,
    etc.  
    	Other notes in this file, and conference, have mentioned from
    time to time, the existence of a British police state in Northern
    Ireland, and in the interests of statistical balance, it seemed
    apropos to include the numbers of one among many groups whose avowed
    purpose is the violent overthrow of the established government,
    partially through the means of assassinations and the detonation
    of explosives in public areas.
    	All in all, it seems fairly obvious that the connection is with
    extreme Left-wing politics, and that the scare, in this case at
    least, is more green than red.
    						Dave

    Leaprechauns see the propaganda left hand of the British in America.
    
    Re .8 
    The Provos will take support from whate ever ideaological society
    that will provide same to rid Ireland of the british presence (their
    logic - not my own).
    The provisional IRA has used, uses, and will continue to use, U.S.
    arms and money to advance their cause. Since getting weapons from
    the U.S. has become more difficult, they use the middle east, if
    that gets more difficult they will use the Far east or wherever.
    
    The IRA has little or no political ideaology. They are a militant
    response to the British presence in Ireland. The British media 
    paints them in as Marxist-Lenninist one day, and Trotskiest the
    next. Its just part of the master-plan to put the IRA into a RED
    camp so that the US would get worried by them, and would then 
    CEASE to question the British political and military approach to
    N.I. It would appear to be a smart strategy and one that works,
    given the renouned rating that America gets in the gullibility 
    market in Britain.
       If in doubt call them commies (its a clever and convenient
    pigeon-hole). Nothing could be further from the truth.
    
    Snake will clarify.
    
    

    ref: .8
    
         Claire Sterling, author of "The Terror Network", contends that
    ALL of the social strife and warfare throughout the world today
    is created by extreme Left elements, solely for the  purpose of
    de-stablizing western civilisation.  Her research, with regards
    to Ireland is woefully inadequate, and grossly inaccurate, as well
    as lending support to the whimsical contention that the IRA is the
    client paramilitary grouping of choice, as designated by the Soviet
    Union and its' satellites.  Naturally, she ignores and dismisses
    ALL of the social strife and warfare, throughout the world today,
    created by western civilisation.  No matter, her book, even though
    it is contradicted by even offical U.K. documents, remains the source
    of origin for those illusionary "internationalist" connections to
    which you lend SO much weight.
         Consider, if you will, just how little sense it makes to claim
    that the IRA is the client of anyone OUTSIDE Ireland, East or West.
    I would offer the suggestion that had ANY state offered military,
    or economic aid to the republican movement, the war would not be
    STILL DRAGGING endlessy on after twenty years.  The U.S. gvmt.,
    for instance, pours MILLIONS into both their proxies in Central
    American, and the Near East.  Have you seen or considered any HARD
    evidence of significant contributions from EITHER East or West?
    Perhaps it's worth noting that the Soviet Bloc endorse the "Worker's
    Party" for their class-oriented vision of the Irish struggle, and
    consider the IRA, along with Sinn Fein to be reactionary elements.
    It would seem that you can't tell the contestents without a program!
    I guess that one man's socialist is another man's facsist?