Brothers in the Lord: The DUP MP and LVF frontman
The loyalist figure, who represented the LVF in dealings with the decommissioning body headed by Gen John De Chastelain, expressed his opposition to the deal in the correspondences which he released to the Sunday Tribune. Most significantly, however, is the content of the responses from the two leading DUP figures.
In his email, Paisley Jnr remarks, “We couldn’t kill them but we can destroy them and their ideology.” In his email, Donaldson addresses McClinton as “a brother in the Lord.”
Excerpts from the article are carried below.In one email, Paisley jnr states: “We couldn’t kill them but we can destroy them and their ideology.” A republican who accepts the police is no longer a republican, he says.
In his email, Donaldson addresses the convicted loyalist paramilitary as “a brother in the Lord”.
“It is clear Sinn Fein/IRA are under serious internal pressure and may well be incapable of delivering on what is required in terms of support for participation in British democracy, support for a British Police Service and recognition of British Courts and British Justice.
All of this with no prospect of a United Ireland in our lifetime. No wonder their rank and file are deeply concerned.
“These decisions are a million miles away from 1916 and the declaration of a 32-county republic. In short, the IRA has lost the battle for a United Ireland.”
The article continues with Jeffrey Donaldson warning that a unionist rejection of what’s on offer will see the British government proceed with a “deeply green Plan B”, including joint sovereignty. He then asked the ex-loyalist paramilitary, “Is this what you fought for, Kenny?”
McClinton was clearly angered by the St Andrews Deal and the tone and content of the emails from the DUP leaders. In his email to Ian Paisley jnr, McClinton accuses the leadership of “playing party politics with your groupies, flatterers, and ‘YES’ men”.
“And while we are at it YOUNG MAN, don’t you ever in your life question my loyalty or commitment to the country I love! There’s more loyalty in my big toe than you have in your entire body!
“Where were whippersnappers like YOU when I was walking the wings of the Hblocks stark naked on the loyalist blanket protest? Where were you then, BOY?
“How dare you throw snide remarks at me. I went out on the 10th May 1977 and shot a man DEAD to take all public transport off the roads of Ulster . . . why? Because I was into shooting people dead? No!
In an attempt to back up your father’s less than popular call for a strike.
“Like the rest of you political clowns, you make plenty of TALK but actually do nothing but draw wages. I’m finished with you, and your party.”
In his response to Donaldson, McClinton claims ex-loyalist prisoners are “treated like something scraped off the sole of someone’s shoe; unemployable; living on social security benefits” while
“DUP politicians and their sons. . . were put into good, high-paid jobs, amass large bank balances over years and years of our poverty, and wined and dined by the so-called ‘great and the good’ whose company the DUP now seem to covet while ex-Loyalist combatants are treated as scum.
Are these, perhaps, what I ‘fought for’, Jeffrey?”
Jeffrey Donaldson asserts in the article that “Kenny McClinton is someone with a terrorist background who has himself stood for election and failed to achieve a mandate. He is mistaken if he thinks by publishing these emails he will embarrass the DUP. I’m happy to stand by everything I wrote.” He further accused McClinton of behaviour which was “very unChristian [for] someone who professes to be a brother in the Lord”.
Ian Paisley jnr’s response was “My emails speak for themselves.
I’ve no difficulty with their publication . . . indeed, given the person I was dealing with, it’s not unexpected. Kenny had no problems begging me to help get him a visa to the US where he wants to ‘preach The Word’.
“He has a lot more to lose from the publication of these emails than me. By his actions, he is undermining unionism.
It’s Sinn Fein which will be celebrating the actions of Kenny McClinton.”
True fair deal, their could be. Is there an obligation for clarification from those involved so.
As you were saying, the context of the emails essentially was to move people away from violence, I dont think that this is in question.
Kloot
No objection here to a politician being asked about what he writes.
Fair Deal.
Grand. I suppose, in the end its to their benefit to clarify the content and context of the emails.
Ive a lot of time and respect for Jeffrey Donaldson. To me, he is a forward thinking man, who wants to see a fair deal done. His active participation in debate in the ROI media is always interesting.
Actually, given the obvious anger which McClinton feels towards the DUP it is a surprise that has so little to say about committing murder to help the Doc. If there had really been collusion he could have made much more damaging allegations.
What’s new about this relationship with the DUP and loyalist murderers. Willie McCrea shared a platform with the leader of the DUPs military wing, the LVF, Billy Wright, protesting about an UVF exclusion order on Wright for continuing on with his murderous campaign against Catholics. McCrea and the DUP protested to the UVF that Wright should be allowed to continue on with his activities free from UVF threats. ‘Pastor’ Kenny was also a member of the LVF leadership who took part in a sham decommissiong act designed by british military intelligence. Of course it is well documented that the relationship between loyalist murder gangs and Unionist parties have existed since the creation of partition.
What is more interesting in this exchange between supporters of loyalist murderers and ‘Pastor’Kenny is their strategy of endorsement and legitamising the PSNI by PSF and the consquences of that.
There is a big difference between ‘could’ and ‘would’. Seems baby Paisley is harbouring an unlawful dream.
See the full text of the “Sunday Tribune” piece at http://redfellow.blogspot.com/2006/12/bizarre-youd-better-believe-it-irish.html
Given the appartent refusal of the DUP to tslk to terrorists, perhaps Big Ian and Wee Martin could just govern by email!
FD: “Yawn when you manage to move your thinking beyond a sectarian stereotype let me know.
Physician, heal thyself. Your seeming inability to acknowledge that something might be amiss in this exchange belies your condescending tone.
Tis a little hard, what with them reverting to the stereotype so well and so often. Admittedly, Junior is too easy a target, seeing his gift for malapropism is dwarfed only by his sire’s gift for rabble-rousing, but if their foolish enough to keep the pup in the window, who am I to complain.
Fair_Deal: “People are willing it to mean something in particular as it fits nicely with their predetermined niche for the DUP and its representatives. I am simply saying there are other possibilities. ”
Contrariwise, you sound as if your are rationalizing meanings beyond the apparent. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe.
willis: “Actually, given the obvious anger which McClinton feels towards the DUP it is a surprise that has so little to say about committing murder to help the Doc. If there had really been collusion he could have made much more damaging allegations. ”
Why? Unless you suspect that McClinton is a great a dunderhead as Junior has demonstrated himself to be, there would be no reason to be explicit, particularly about illegal activities. If both parties know what’s there to be revealed, there is no need to spell it out in short words and big letters… well, no reason beyond Junior being a bit clumsy in his language from time to time.
DC
“Physician, heal thyself. Your seeming inability to acknowledge that something might be amiss in this exchange belies your condescending tone.”
1. dantheman repeated a dull matra that had no linkage to the issue of the thread hence it was treated with the contempt it deserved.
2. I haven’t ruled out the meaning that some want it to mean out simply that there are other possibilities people should condsider beyond knee-jerk. Sometimes what gets called a spade is actually a shovel.
FD
Two DUP reps correspond by email to a contact with the decommissioning body and try to convince him that the St Andrews Agreement is a positive development. Oh the humanity!
Oddly, they appear to have forgotten to ask him about LVF decommissioning. Just an oversight, I’m sure.
I want us all to use this as a reference point when, the inevitable accusations are lauched against Republicans.
Personally I think engagement of those engaged in criminality should be welcomed and if the need to pay off these godfathers arises, then look big, hold your nose and pay up.
Furthermore, this pay off should be extended to both sides, although Republicans don’t want paying off, they just want to be allowed to keep what they have generated.
So, sure, pay Frankie Gallagher £20 million, give Jackie McDonald a pay off and a job like that of Bobby Storey, but not forgetting Thomas Slab Murphy, who wants nothing more than to be allowed to retire gracefully, assets intact.
This whole business of drawing a line under paramiltary fundraising was always going to be unsavoury, but if it is to be done then a bit of equal measure for Loyalist and Republicans is the only way to overcome this nessasary evil.
Dec
Have you seen the full emails then?
FD
No more than you have, though it hasn’t stopped you rationalising them. However there is nothing in the published excerpts ( with their references to killing Republicans and fighting of wars -presumably Donaldson shorthand for sectarian slaughter) which encourages me to think that the removal of Loyalist armouries is anywhere on the DUP agenda.
Do you know what came ot my mind when reading about this
Those rows of mullahs who sit sagely saying nothing while their followers are blowing up everyone around them, the mullahs then hold up their hands and say “who us, we did nothing” !!
Dec
Never said I had. Hence I have commented on what has been publicly released. What I haven’t known I have said so rather than speculating on the unseen to try and shore up a point.
FD: “2. I haven’t ruled out the meaning that some want it to mean out simply that there are other possibilities people should condsider beyond knee-jerk. Sometimes what gets called a spade is actually a shovel. ”
Mayhap… but I’m willing to wager both are covered in fertilzer…
And to expect the obvious out of these three louts, esp. Junior, is to say water is wet.
Art Hostage: “Personally I think engagement of those engaged in criminality should be welcomed and if the need to pay off these godfathers arises, then look big, hold your nose and pay up. ”
And how is the weather in Munich this time of year?
Ridiculous
Theads set up by Chris usually take this line. Out of context remarks dressed up to shake the nerves of narrow minded naive nationalists.
Without the full emails, we will not understand the context with which these remarks where made.
Chris behave yourself.
DC
“to expect the obvious out of these three louts, esp. Junior, is to say water is wet”
If a topic is approached with a closed mind then the prejudices of that closed mind will be reinforced.
Too many slugger threads based on a DUP statement or action go immediately to “told you so” “all they can say is no/never substitute your favourite negative here” or “we can pack up the process now” etc. I remember that reaction to Paisley’s Twelfth speech. I pointed out his comments left wriggle room but was generally dismissed. Lo and behold four months later Paisley was buying into a new political deal which the most nationalist commentors in July were saying his comments had made impossible.
The reverse of this opinion are the Unionists who say the republican movement hasn’t moved at all.
Igore all the spin the DUP have a deep schism running through the party and this correspondence confirms it.
They will not now go into powersharing with SF reagrdless of policing, trying to hold their party together is more important. They are worried about McCartney doing a lot of damage in several seats…comments from the leading lights e.g. Arlene Foster confirm this.
I can see some movement away from the DUP to the left and right and staying at home … but where will poor JD go now?
Let us wait and see what happens as the DUP grass roots exert their influence.
FD: “If a topic is approached with a closed mind then the prejudices of that closed mind will be reinforced. ”
Not a closed mind… just low expectations. The subjects are fairly familiar in the tone of their correspondence, there is no apparent repudiation of “Pastor Kenny’s” violence — even nots of comradeship with the “Is this what you fought for, Kenny?” remark, and, given the record he has accomplished, I wouldn’t count on Junior to do anything more complicated or laudable than be able to turn Oxygen into CO2 and beans into fertilizer, thereby feeding the plants.
FD: “Too many slugger threads based on a DUP statement or action go immediately to “told you so—
Given how many times they’ve been told things that just weren’t so — collusion between the police British intelligence and Loyalist terrorists, for one — that have surfaced like a turd in the punchbowl, can you particularly expect them to do otherwise?
FD: “I remember that reaction to Paisley’s Twelfth speech. I pointed out his comments left wriggle room but was generally dismissed. Lo and behold four months later Paisley was buying into a new political deal which the most nationalist commentors in July were saying his comments had made impossible. ”
That does not make his statement less inflammatory nor his rhetoric less rabble-rousing. Likewise, I also seem to recall other aspects of the twelfth that, regardless of the level of evidence, some Unionists were unwilling to accept or even acknowledge. That makes it sound like a push to me — you are unwilling to acknowledge the bad in the Unionist / Loyalist constellation of groups, even when the noisesome proof is stuck under your nose, whilst republicans wrinkle their noses and gag at the first whiff.
As I said before, sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. Your efforts to suggest alternatives is laudable, although I don’t seem to remember you being nearly as accepting when the roles are reversed.
Arlene Foster made a slip during a T.V. interview last week and acknowledged that the DUP will eventually ‘have to’ (her words!) go into power sharing. She modified her words at once but the damage was done.
NI cannot stand alone and the British are exerting their authority at last. If the money can be poured into deprived loyalist areas as it should be, then it can also be withheld.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
DC
“Not a closed mind… just low expectations”
As the chinese say same rice different chopsticks.
“The subjects are fairly familiar in the tone of their correspondence, there is no apparent repudiation of…”
Again the full emails are not available so neither of us know what was or wasn’t said.
“can you particularly expect them to do otherwise?”
People are free to do as they wish. However, just I am free to challenge their closed mind/low expectations. As Oscar Wilde said, we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.
“you are unwilling to acknowledge the bad in the Unionist / Loyalist constellation of groups”
I wouldn’t want my views to be misrepresented by your self-confessed low expectations so substantiation please?
Lib2525
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
This afternoon I had seafood paella, with pan and alioli. Furthermore I had two glasses of wine, it was payed for by my mate Alicia.
So I had a free lunch and that makes you wrong like always.
Fair Deal,
Do you accept that there has been in the past a link between the DUP and certain loyalist paramilitaires? This exchange would indicate that this has been the case.
If so, would that not make their constant attack on solely SF a little bit hypocritical.
What I haven’t known I have said so rather than speculating on the unseen to try and shore up a point.
Ok then, we’ll speculate on the ‘seen’ then shall we?
Do you think it appropriate for Ian Paisley Junior (DUP Justice spokesperson and member of the Policing Board, no less) to make references regarding the killing of his political opponents?.
Do you think it appropriate for Jeffrey Donaldson to refer to McClinton’s past (a litany of sectarian murder, violence and agitation) as ‘fighting a war’.
Or do you still stand by your earlier remarks :
Two DUP reps correspond by email to a contact with the decommissioning body and try to convince him that the St Andrews Agreement is a positive development. Oh the humanity!
Having said that there’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about any of this really. DUP in loyalist paramiliatry link: shock, horror.
Dolmen Builder: “This afternoon I had seafood paella, with pan and alioli. Furthermore I had two glasses of wine, it was payed for by my mate Alicia.
So I had a free lunch and that makes you wrong like always. ”
Actually, Alicia *PAID* for lunch so it wasn’t free, now was it?
dantheman
This case proves contact between Ian Paisley
Jnr, Jeffrey Donaldson and Kenny McClinton. Nothing more. It neither proves nor disproves what happened in the past.
fair-deal
How can you try to turn the tables and lecture on closed/open minds. Throughout this thread your mindset is so obviously
prod good taig bad. Total hypocracy.
For crying out loud man we’re not idiots !!!
“Bertie
“Why shouldn’t they be in contact with a pastor who is describes as an “ex-loyalist paramilitaryâ€?â€
Why can they not engage with “ex-republican†paramilitaries?
Please try and give a good answer because i’ve noticed how you keep dodging all of the other questions that have been put before you.
Posted by Scary_eire on Dec 11, 2006 @ 09:52 AM”
Unless I have missed the news flash that made you king of the world, I must abuse you of the notion that I have to dance to your tune. I am not posting on here for your benefit. I am not aware of having “dodged” any questions put to me. At the same time, There is no onus on me to answer any questions. I am not a politician and I am not and never have been a terorist.
As to your
“Why can they not engage with “ex-republican†paramilitaries? ”
I haven’t said they can’t. The trouble is that people want them to engage with those that are not “ex”.
Dec
“Do you think it appropriate for Ian Paisley Junior (DUP Justice spokesperson and member of the Policing Board, no less) to make references regarding the killing of his political opponents?.”
I don’t think the term kill is a term that should be thrown about willy nilly in public. Neither is it the wisest choice in what was a private email.
If he had actually advocated the killing of political opponents then there would be extremely serious questions to answer but he doesn’t. However much some wish he had.
“Do you think it appropriate for Jeffrey Donaldson to refer to McClinton’s past (a litany of sectarian murder, violence and agitation) as ‘fighting a war’.”
He didn’t say fighting a war.
“DUP in loyalist paramiliatry link”
Kenny McClinton makes clear he is an ex-paramilitary, as he said in the interview
“He said he regretted his terrorist involvement, which had ended 30 years ago.”
fair_deal: “As the chinese say same rice different chopsticks. ”
Hardly. I simply make a point to look at previous behavior when judging current behavior. Given the Pastor and Junior’s seperate histories, I am not inclinced to be charitable in my analysis of their current efforts. Should every act be a “one-off” starting with a clean slate?
fair_deal: “Again the full emails are not available so neither of us know what was or wasn’t said. ”
A lack of full and complete knowledge has not stopped you from inferring guilt in the past. Why is innuendo good enough to damn Republicans but not Unionists?
fair_deal: “However, just I am free to challenge their closed mind/low expectations. As Oscar Wilde said, we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. ”
Ah, but I sincerely doubt the Pastor and Junior are studying astronomy.
fair_deal: “I wouldn’t want my views to be misrepresented by your self-confessed low expectations so substantiation please? ”
You Pilate-esque hand-washing of the tri-colors and sneers over young McIlveen were of note. Further, your inability to grasp that these events are not simply acts of rememberance but also triumphalistic rituals also strike me as willful blindness, particularly as practiced by some of the less savory members of the Unionist / Loyalist community, especially your efforts to ignore the links between the two.
Likewise, you seek to artificially divorce aspects of the same event, such as Loyalist slogans, gunfire, et. al. at bonfires and at parades — again, not acknowledging the apparent and obvious Loyalist participation and acceptance at the event.
“dantheman
This case proves contact between Ian Paisley
Jnr, Jeffrey Donaldson and Kenny McClinton. Nothing more. It neither proves nor disproves what happened in the past.”
FD
One thing I could possibly accept is that the manner of this talk from IJP to KMcL is the use of a type of language trying to sell the deal to him and those he influences. In that context I would have to accept that it may be for the greater good. It is understandable, in teh context of NI, to use this terminology.
I would still have to say however that by the manner in which you write you try to give the indication that the DUP are whiter than white.
For a party which claims to have such superior morality over its “enemies” ( a name it uses itself), it would need to have an unblemished record to allow it to cast the first stone at others without feeling the need to look in the mirror.
The response from KMcL would indicate that the DUP, and IP in particulat, had contibuted to a situation where KMcL felt it necessary to kill someone for “Ulster’s” cause. Given this, how can you continually deny that the DUP have not greatly contributed to the escalation of tensions in the past.
Nobody has said that IP went out and shot someone personally. Neither did many leading SS members. Just that he proactively stoked up the situation and used impressionable people like KMcL to do his work for him.
THe way in which the DUP usd the loyalist commmunity in NI is appalling. Not only are they sectarian, they are racist, homophobic but (to me more than the rest) a party of class. They are a rabble of the lowest order, and their contribution to NI during the last few decades has been nothing short of disgraceful.
parcifal
“prod good taig bad. Total hypocracy.”
1. Any quotes to substantiate your claim from this threas?
2. In one of my posts I directly criticised those in Unionist communities who approach topics with a similarly closed mind. Perhaps you didn’t see that so here it is again.
“The reverse of this opinion are the Unionists who say the republican movement hasn’t moved at all.”
So it wasn’t “prod good taig bad” but “closed minds bad”
“For crying out loud man we’re not idiots !!!”
Never said you were. However trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole is a waste of all our times.
I can understand why nationalists would make huge mileage if a prominent DUP politician were caught meeting with active loyalist paramilitaries saying “Loyalist paramilitary murders are just great. Three cheers for collusion. Not a bullet, not an ounce” It would be hugely embarassing and indeed make the DUP’s stance on SF completely hypocritical.
However, these comments are not that or anything close to it.
dantheman
I do not consider the DUP whiter than white nor that they have an unblemished history e.g. McCrea sharing a platform with Wright, Ulster Resistance.
Where your argument goes into moral equivalence I am afraid I disagree. Each of us have our moral corruptions and ambiguities but that does not we all have equal moral corruption. John Hume is not the moral equivalent of Gerry Adams, neither for the DUP’s mistakes Ian Paisley the moral equivalent of Martin McGuinness.
Equally, I don’t buy into the sob story it was Paisley’s fault.
I also believe in the capacity of people and positions to change. I have done so myself from being a very angry young man to the more controlled and analytical individual I try to be today as have my politics matured.
dan, dc, parc, dec
I’m heading out tonight so if you choose to respond I won’t be able to get back to you until 2moro. Take care.
fair deal
would you check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
“In the case that assassinations, false flag or black ops or any other illegal or otherwise disrespectable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any connection to or awareness of such act, or the agents used to carry out such act.”
so it includes collusion, hand-wringing etc
dantheman this term needs to be used more often and become part of norn iron vocab.
Hope the link helps everyone.
Quote from Martin Dillon’s “GOD and the Gun” p.23..”Kenny McClinton admits that he once advocated beheading Catholics and impaling their heads on the railings of Woodvale Park in the Protestant Shankill area of West Belfast” It also mentions close friendships with the Shankill Butchers. Donaldson, McClinton, Paisley Jr; all brothers in the Lord, what a lovely bunch.
fair_deal,
Uncharacteristically, you’re now outright apologizing for the indefensible. Worse, you’re engaging in pure doublespeak :
Both Donaldson and McClinton profess now to be born again Christains hence the phraseology ‘brothers in the Lord’. Big Deal.
This stretches credibility to it’s furthest limits. You reckon these emails would have been exchanged with a convicted IRA murderer if he’d claimed to have seen the light in order to get out of jail ?
Paisley Jnr won’t even talk to SF people who have never been convicted. Yet here he is bantering away with a convicted murderer, using phrases like “we couldn’t kill them, so ..” ?
There is a benign explanation for that phrase. He is a DUP MLA, ‘We’ could refer to the DUP. “The DUP couldn’t kill then but the DUP can destroy them.â€
This doesn’t alter the seriousness of the point. The meaning of the phrase is quite clear. If I say “I couldn’t do X, so Y” it obviously means that I either attempted, or considered and then dismissed, option X before moving on to Y. I’m disturbed by people who fail to unequivocally condemn the use of violent methods. Aren’t you ?
Do you reckon if an SF politician who used a phrase like “is that what you fought for?” when speaking to a convicted IRA bomber, would have been allowed to get away with such a remark ? Don’t try to wriggle out of it by trying to say that a war was not mentioned, it’s damn obvious how loyalists regard their “fight” and Paisley would be well aware of that. I could tolerate this comment being made in a discussion with a police officer or soldier. But a crowd of slashers and butchers like this ? What business do the DUP have talking about commitment to peaceful and democratic means ?
Maybe you have forgotten John Hume met with Gerry Adams (a then member of the IRA ‘Army council’ according to the british and irish governments) while the PIRA were killing people and he did so with the backing of the SDLP.
So where do you stand on that FD ? There are only two ways to come down on it – either it is right or it was wrong.
- if the DUP think it is right to talk to terrorists who are NOT EVEN ON CEASEFIRE (!!) then what is all this oul shite about commitment to peaceful means, and what were they knocking the SDLP for ?
- if the DUP think it is not right, then why are they doing it ?
Where do you stand yourself ? Whataboutery isn’t going to get you out of this hypocritical hole you’ve dug for yourself. I feel like a bit of an eejit for believing that there were unionists who were genuinely opposed to dealing with terrorists. Here you are working your butt off defending politicians who are talking to convicted murderers who are in organizations which are not even on ceasefire, who have never disarmed and who have never apologized for what they have done. You could have just left it (like the other unionist commentators have) but instead you’ve stuck your neck out.
He was trying to convince the one person to have overseen the only loyalist decommissioning that it was a good idea. What is so bad about that?
You’re asking us what’s bad about talking to unreconstructed terrorists ? Leaving that aside, Why wouldn’t the DUP use this technique for republicans ? Why did they condemn Hume for it ?
Don’t try to say that this is all about persuading loyalists to join the forces of good. This is just another typical step for the DUP, acting as the political wing of loyalist paramilitarism. Nothing new here – just like SF, they condemn it when the police conduct raids on loyalists, they avoid condemning the activities of loyalist murderers, they promote the interests of paramilitaries in jail. What are they doing requiring others to commit to peaceful means when they won’t do so themselves ?
I’m distinctly getting the feeling that if a DUP man turned up at a loyalist show of strength you’d be somehow trying to get him off the hook. Surely there’s somewhere you draw the line ?
Common Tater
“Actually, Alicia *PAID* for lunch so it wasn’t free, now was it?”
Actually it was free as far as I was concerned and to cap it all I got to give her one as well.
Sorry Bertie if i came off a bit rude in that last post. I just cant see why they will not even engage on any level with Sinn Fein.
Im pretty sure that they are not active in paramilitarism at the moment!
If there was some sort of face to face commumication then it would soon become very clear whether the SSA is going to work or not.
What are your thoughts on this?
parcifal: (Re: plausible deniability) …so it includes collusion, hand-wringing etc
And what about ‘Implausible deniability’ – does that cover DAAD, the Northern Bank robbery and membership of senior Shinners in the IRA army council?
Fair Deal
“The usual damned if Unionism doesn’t or if Unionism does from Nationalism.”
Nice try but doesn’t answer the question.
As a moderate Nationalist (and non Sinn Fein supporter), I have no issue with Unionist politicians who are genuinely trying to get “Loyalist” terrorists to disarm.
John Hume’s clear aim when he negotiated with Gerry Adams was to get the IRA to stop the violence and disarm.
However, McCrea was NOT trying to get the LVF to disarm and many DUP figures have had associations with “Loyalist” terrorists in the past i.e the farcical 3rd force and Ulster Resistance
If you want to know about Willie Frazer’s associations with “Loyalist” terrorists, just ask the PSNI.
The vast majority of Nationalists/Catholics that I know would support any genuine efforts to end “Loyalist” paramilitarism by Unionist politicians or anyone else.
However, people like McCrea or Frazer or Ivan Foster have never made any effort to do this. They have associated with “Loyalist” terrorists for their own ends.
They then criticise Sinn Fein and anyone who deals with them as associating with terrorists.
Activities such as this should be “damned” by all right thinking people.
It’s not a matter of damning Unionist politicians as a matter of course. It’s a matter of seeing this blatent hypocrisy for what it is.
In a lot of the comments there is an undertone of “Ian Paisley Jnr is a bastard so anything he wrote must have the worst possible connotations”. The dislike of the person is affected the ability to look at these comments for themselves, willing them to be something more than is there.
DC
“…sneers over young McIlveen were of note.”
THAT IS A BAREFACED LIE. PUT UP OR SHUT UP DC. PROVIDE THE QUOTES THAT I SNEERED AT MICHAEL MCILVEEN OR APOLOGISE AT ONCE.
Comrade Stalin
“you’re now outright apologizing for the indefensible”
I have apologised for no one. Simply pointed out this isn’t the bang to rights material people are claiming it to be.
“This stretches credibility to it’s furthest limits. You reckon these emails would have been exchanged with a convicted IRA murderer if he’d claimed to have seen the light in order to get out of jail ?”
1. If you associate with evangelical Protestants you hear such phraseology often so it is perfectly credible.
2. Jeffrey Donaldson worked with Families against Intimidation and Terror and its then spokesperson Vincent McKenna, a former republican prisoner who said he had been born again. (He was subsequently proven to be a peadophile). So there is a precedent for something you think was impossible.
3. If he had described Kenny McClinton as a brother in the lord when engaged in paramilitarism then you would have every ground for outrage but he didn’t or anything close.
“You’re asking us what’s bad about talking to unreconstructed terrorists ?”
“- if the DUP think it is right to talk to terrorists who are NOT EVEN ON CEASEFIRE (!!) then what is all this oul shite about commitment to peaceful means, and what were they knocking the SDLP for ?
- if the DUP think it is not right, then why are they doing it ?”
1. I don’t have to engage in whataboutery at all as the description of Kenny McClinton as unreconstructed doesn’t fly nor is he a member of the LVF or a leader within it. In the article he states – “He said he regretted his terrorist involvement, which had ended 30 years ago.†Kenny McClinton is not the Gerry Adams of Ulster Loyalism.
2. As regard that comment an SDLP supporter tried to adopt a position of moral outrage that was hypocritical.
3. I have written a long piece on slugger of my own analysis of Loyalism and set out why I don’t think the Hume approach will work. Loyalism and republicanism are not mirror images of one another.
“it obviously means that I either attempted, or considered and then dismissed, option X before moving on to Y.”
1. You had Paisley Jnr on your psychiatrist chair have you? Tell me what is he thinking right now?
2. The DUP was not a paramilitary organisation so it couldn’t kill anyone.
“Do you reckon if an SF politician who used a phrase like “is that what you fought for?†when speaking to a convicted IRA bomber, would have been allowed to get away with such a remark ?”
They do much more than that. Did you not hear any of the eulogising of the Hunger Strikers? Or the speeches at republican commerorations?
“You could have just left it (like the other unionist commentators have) but instead you’ve stuck your neck out.”
1. Sorry circular argument. If I hadn’t commentated I would have been hiding.
2. I am not here to simply agree with other people’s preconceptions. People’s thinking doesn’t move on if it isn’t challenged
“I’m distinctly getting the feeling that if a DUP man turned up at a loyalist show of strength you’d be somehow trying to get him off the hook. Surely there’s somewhere you draw the line ?”
You are incorrect.
Billy
“any genuine efforts to end “Loyalist†paramilitarism by Unionist politicians or anyone else. ”
So telling Kenny McClinton the SAA was a good thing was meant to encourage violence!?!
FD,
I think the point are trying to simplify, and you seem hellbent on avoiding (you’d make a good politician BTW), is that DUP policy is based on total and utter hypocrisy – as in Do what we say not as we do.
-The slated JH for talking to the IRA in an effort to get them to disband. DUP members talked to the LVF in order to support them
-They destroyed O’Neill, Faulkner and Trimble for doing deals with nationalism, yet when put in a position of power themselves the penny dropped that they had no alternative all along and had to do an even greener deal. This cartoon, (from their website) may explain it in more colouful terms
http://www.dup.org.uk/Cartoons/C30.jpg
-They criticise Direct Rule Ministers, yet have no urgency in setting up a parliament themselves.
-They talk about civil liberty for all, yet are homophobic, racist, sectarian and also promote the class system. It is widely acknowledged that the DUP wanted rid of George Seawright not because of his vile sectarian comments, but becuase he was a little bit too working class for the party image. They are so extremist that they have been grouped with fascist organisations in the European Parliament by outside observers. These people, with nonoe of our collective baggage, are a great judge as to the type of party the DUP are
-They bang on about SF decommissioning being a prerequisite for political progress. They take no initiative in talking to the loyalist paramilitaries, who are still much more active, have not decomissioned and apparently are not even still on ceasefire. They have committed several murders over the last few years. The local DUP MPs turn a blind eye to such activity in their own community.
-They try to sell a deal which will have MMcG as deputy FM. IP will still not appear on TV with MMcG. Prominent DUP MP’s, so called Christians, do not even have the common Christian decency to acknowledge such members when passing them on the corridor. They pick and choose extracts from the bible like the worst example of preacher you will encounter in the deep south of the USA.
-They label politicians such as Mary Lou McDonald and Catriona Ruane as terrorists, even though neither have had any links with such organisations. They label Kenny McClinton as an ex-terrorist. I do wonder at what point an ex-terrorist becomes a terrorist in the eyes of the DUP. When he starts suporting the union I suspect.
I do hope that the DUP are rewarding you in some way for you continual Johnny Cochrane attitude to their party. You cant accuse others of lowering the bar when you refuse to answer their questions and continually avoid the issues.
I also noticed that you said that you were angrier when you were younger. I know many people from areas such as the Shankill Road that live in relatively poverty (by Western standards). They have been brainwashed for years into thinking that this was the fault of SF or the Dublin government or the RC church. Such organisations have never been in a position to govern or help these areas. The Stormont administration and latterly Westminster have been and done nothing. There is a lot of misdirected anger in these communities. Unfortunately only now some of them are beginning to realise that it has been their own religiously fundamental leaders that have “marched them up to the top of the hill and back down again” many times. I really do pity these loyalist communities. Their detachment from reality and their own history, and the lies they have been spun by their co-religionists over the years have been crimnial.
dantheman
You don’t like the DUP I get it already.
FD
No offence to you, but from your evasions you don’t seem to get very much at all.
2 things are clear, and which distinguishes these talks from direct talks with adams for instance:
1. KMcC IS NOT in the LVF, or any other terrorist organisation – he is their decommissioning representative
2. KMcC has repented and regretted his past involvement in terror, If only SF/IRA would do the same.
If Adams and crew would follow point 2 we could all begin to get somewhere, but as thye still support the IRA and its actions past and present were going nowhere
Fair_deal: “THAT IS A BAREFACED LIE. PUT UP OR SHUT UP DC. PROVIDE THE QUOTES THAT I SNEERED AT MICHAEL MCILVEEN OR APOLOGISE AT ONCE. ”
Nice try at filibuster, now read the *WHOLE* sentence, this time for meaning and content. You washed you hands of both the tricolours and the sneers of your fellow-travellers re: McIlveen, piously saying that “I already said it was bad” and “that’s paramilitary behavior, not Unionist culture,” ignoring that those are frequently one in the same.
Now, I am I correct in assuming that the best rebuttal you can manage is to deliberately misconstrue my words and bang your shoe on the table?