You are somehow trying to align Kingsmill with defending Catholics which I cannot accept.
The answer is I don’t know but shooting 10 Protestants dead doesn’t form part of it,
I fully understand and accept that Catholic populations justifiably turned to the IRA to protect them since 1969 - I know of families in that regard. But killing ordinary working people due to their religion doesn’t form part of that. It never can.
Six Catholic civilians were murdered the night before Kingsmills, like all prior attacks of the previous year organized and carried out by UDR and RUC members. The Brits were clearly trying to escalate to civil war, and didn’t give a shit how many on either side were murdered. You have to see it in that context, a community being murdered by their own state security forces. You can question the morality of what was done, but then for consistency you have to question all actions in all wars which targeted civilians.
It’s not deflection at all. The questions are the exact same, except as regards the greater scale of the oppression suffered by the Palestinian people.
If you’re saying Kingsmills was justified, and it appears you sort of are, I don’t see how you can have much problem with suicide bombings and the like.
There’s a thread on Israel if you want to discuss Palestine. As far as I’m aware the IRA were not trying to establish a Catholic state and murder all Protestants.
Don’t get me wrong - the Brits and the loyalists were basically evil. Whether it was the sheer sectarian nature of the UVF, the utter dirtiness and scum of the Brits and the inflammation and bile being spouted by Paisley.
There is actually quite a lot I admire about the IRA, how they grouped together as a community and fought back giving up their lives in many instances. They did some terrible things though - acts which could never be justified. They need to be called out also not deflected away versus this or that.
You’re right about the Brits wanting to frighten the Catholics into disowning the IRA. But killing Protestants was playing right into their hands.
Sinn Fein now condemn the dissos. But there’s no difference between what the dissos do and what the PIRA did. They dissos just do much less of it, so would have to be slightly less morally rotten by that score.