Paramilitary or Terrorist? == 

 Paramilitary or Terrorist? I think it should be Paramilitary but i might be worng. Whats everyone else's opinion? I feel terrorist is too strong a word to describe them and all i hear those groups being described in the news as Paramilitary. Anyone have any thoughts on it?       EDIT - Forgot to include the four ~. Apologies 

 == NPOV == 

 While I have no sympathy for the rioters, a couple of things need to be cleared up. 

 First of all the initial violence was not just the protesters attacking the Gardai. The Gardai tried to disperse the protesters who were blocking the route of the march and scuffles broke out. The protesters then startd to throw things and the riot developed. Quite a few of the protesters were also battoned at this point. i saw them with bloodied heads. Secondly its not true to say that the rioters were attackign the public at random. As far as I could see, on O'Connell st at any rate, this was not the case, thousands of onlookers were intermingled with the rioters and were unmolested by them. Some of the public even expressed sympathy for them.  

 Secondly the mob attacked at least one journalist - Charlie Bird - but they were not just attacking every jouranlist they could find. Plenty of them were wandering around behind the rioters "front lines" with notebooks and cameras etc. 

 Thirdly, whoever wrote that they were urinating in bottles and throwing them at random needs to provide a source. Just because you dissaprove of something doesn't mean that you can repeat every rumur about it. 
 

 Sunday Independent, 26 February 2006, states that at least one Coca-Cola bottle full of urine was thrown at and hit a Garda. It is also interesting that "Charlie Bird" was called an "Orange bastard", since he has been the reporter the IRA contact to make a statement for years.   

 I know wiki policy is not to question media reports, but the Sindo is so biased against republicans I wouldn't take this very seriously personally. Re Charlie Bird, dunno why they attacked him and called him an "orange bastard". Sheer mindlessness maybe. Or maybe its some kind of dissident association of him with the "betrayal" peace process.  
 

 : I would have to agree with that statement.  According to the SIndo, my home area was overrun by IRA Drug barons who forced us all to vote for Sean Crowe. The Phoenix regularly lampoons the Sindo and indeed the entire indo group for this. \  

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