Defeating the Enemy Within

[two gun sid]

From The Blanket:
Oh, Dear, Oh, Dear. No matter how often one's intellect tells one's self an organization like Sinn Fein must be thoroughly infiltrated at all levels with touts, due to it having in a previous incarnation challenged with arms one of the more powerful, economically and militarily nations on earth, it still comes as a shock when the tout takes human form and is laid out bare before us. The more so when they turn out to be an actor on the main Republican stage, and not some desperate corner boy who has been bullied, bribed and threatened by Betty Windsor's finest to sell their friends, families and fellow countrymen for pennies or freedom from jail which in reality is no freedom at all.

The fact is, ever since Philip Agee broke with the CIA in the late 1960's and published 'Inside the Company, A CIA Diary', in which he cataloged the names of the touts the CIA ran in South and Central America within the region's political parties, business organizations, trade unions and the revolutionary left, it has been public knowledge the security services of all major powers behave in a similar manner throughout the world. (Touts: these days the security services call such people 'agents of influence', which is how Mr Donaldson described himself in his Dublin statement, perhaps giving us some idea as to who actually wrote it.)

That the Provisional Republican Movement has been and still is a prime target of infiltration by the British security services surely surprises no one, nor that these spooks use this leverage to push the political agenda of their master in Whitehall. Whether this should continue well after the military wing of SF has declared the war is over and stood their volunteers down is another matter.

What appears to be happening is whenever SF refuses to go in the political direction the British government wish it to, or when it starts getting uppity, the British expose an agent within their midst to throw SF into temporary turmoil and remind them who is master of the peace process. We saw this when Freddie Scappaticci was first exposed at a time when PIRA were refusing to move fast enough for the Brits on decommissioning and standing down. Now we have the British desperate to get SF to accept the PSNI, coupled with fears about its growth electorally.

http://lark.phoblacht.net/mh2312052g.html

[Maeve]

1. I have one problem with that article--

In the face of British misbehavior, it seems to call for change to come more from Sinn Fein than the Brits. Maybe that's my perception having read too many anti-SF articles in the past few weeks (the Brit/Loyalist press are in the O'Reilly/Coulter mold, or vice versa).

I think this mess could be the beginning of a great push in the peace process. Much depends on how Bertie Ahern handles it behind the scenes and what happens with the British government over the next year.

[two gun sid]

2. Point taken.

and you may well be right that this could be a big year for The Peace Process. I see that Hain is in the news this morning calling for devolution to happen in 2006.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/12/30/story237193.html

[Maeve]

3. Hain is key to anything really happening

Unless Blair cuts his legs out from under him. And it may not matter what colors Ian Paisley turns in his bluster..."We don't WANT to govern ourselves!!" isn't a very easy platform to sell.

Interesting times, mo chara! :popcorn: