This of course is an important post.
If you have soldiers managing civilian events they are likely to (at some point) respond like soldiers rather than police.
Of course the soldiers who shot bear responsibility (were they given orders to shoot? If so huge responsibility lies there).
But this situation only became possible by the political decision to bring the military into the equation, and whilst not an inevitability, it wasn’t even a possibility before that decision was taken.
I suppose those politicians are now dead and buried and won’t be around to be accountable. It was ever thus I suppose.
I don't think the problem was the deployment of the military
per se. In fact the military was initially welcomed by the Catholic population as 'neutral' peacekeepers (remembering the police force of the time was staunchly Protestant Unionist). The problem was how the military operated once they were deployed, both in terms of active doctrine and general unsuitability.
You are right that the military was very ill-suited for 'policing'. However at the time, in military terms, the British military considered themselves (and were considered by other Western militaries) to be very experienced and well equipped for policing operations. The problem was, the 'policing' operations the army had engaged in were in ex-colonies in Africa and Asia, where they could get away with such brutality. They couldn't get away with it in the streets of Western Europe.
The paratroopers who were responsible for Bloody Sunday, as well as the earlier Ballymurphy massacre, were particularly ill-suited even by general military-standards. They were being trained to fight WW3 against the Russians as shock troops. They instead used that training against civilians. Not that that excuses them in any way. They should probably have never been deployed, but even once deployed there is no excuses.
I actually visited Derry for the first time the other week. The first thing that struck me was how small and quaint it is. It is absolutely mad to think it was the scene of Bloody Sunday and what was basically civil war.
