I owe you a proper response to that comment of yours… been up past my eyes in the last 24 hours with tech stuff and a couple of MSM commissions…

Kick me if I’ve not come back by this evening… It could be another long day though…

actually over 44% of the Irish electorate didnt even vote, and of theose that did (56%) 6% said no.

So only about half of the populace voted for it

you have truly hit the nail on the head, excellent post

Where to exactly?

The republican end, which is where exactly? Bunch of qualified lawyer-types in the Dial who run for democratic office?

Sounds great. Here’s me thinking something magical was on offer.

It’s quite clear the state is not taking anyone anywhere and patently obvious that the power to change liberal democratic administrations from a Stomont sub-governance to a Dublin republican one can come about via politics.

Perhaps you should focus on politics Dave rather than engage in the sentimental aspects of republican heart tugging which doesn’t really mean anything to people with Ipods and X boxes and cushy public sector jobs.

Well, you might want to check who spun those two ‘facts’ to you. In regard to the former, the PoC, which the Shinners tout (no pun intended) as the turning point was, in fact, part of the constitutional framework of NI since partition. In regard to the latter, the GFA was not ratified in the Republic of Ireland. We voted on the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which amended Articles 2 and 3 to remove the Republic’s territorial claim to Her Majesty’s sovereign territory of Northern Ireland.

The 19th Amendment was the Constitutional fallout of said treaty. When the principle was introduced is not relevant to the point. The fact that the entire populace upheld it is.

The spinners might be the same folks who are now spinning the line to the muppets who support them that the dissidents are criminals but the Shinners weren’t, so it’s okay to inform on the dissidents but it wasn’t okay to inform on the Shinners – which is why the Shinners don’t have to apologise for all those their ISU killed as informers (under the direction of British agents, John Joe Magee and Freddie Scapaticci). See, that level of control over the muppets is why the Shinners were worth their handlers’ investment in them.

Yeah Dave, we are all just dumb Nordies up here. Northern Nationalism did not accept anything that was not a fact on the ground. Chances of a United Ireland without a 50%+1 vote here: 0. Usefulness of claims to the NI, of prior sovereignty or roughy anything else: 0. Usefulness of you repeating the same line endlessly: 0. We are quite prepared to ride the SF horse as far as we think it can take us, just as we were happy to ride the SDLP horse.

Posted by Dave

Good post Dave.

It sounds like the NIO is trying to spin it that Orde had good reason to keep the Policing Board in ignorance, thereby trying to get him off the hook.

Perhaps someone should inform the Chief Constable that it is not his prerogative to declare that he has no confidence in the Policing Board but, rather, it is the proper function of the Policing Board to declare that about the Chief Constable.

It seems that the State and its puppets believe that the problem is not deemed to be that the State is lying to its own citizens and their elected representatives, the problem is only deemed to exist when the State is caught lying to them.

The level of contempt that the NI Statelet has for its citizens and for public scrutiny is simply staggering. And it futile to think that a Statelet when a secret agency controls the media and the democratic process with massive-scale bribery and blackmail (300m worth of it per year) could ever deliver a democratic process.

It is one thing to ask the nationalists to give their support to a British police service in the interests of maintaining a ‘shared’ communal order but it is quite another to ask them to give that support to the British army or to expect that support for the police service to hold if “assets” of the British army should become inextricably interlinked to it.

Now, I don’t hold that it is impossible to do that since it is part of the long-term agenda that those nationalists were hoodwinked into supporting, but it’s all about timing, incremental steps, and top-down management. For example, see how easily they accepted that MI5 should be inextricably interlinked to the PSNI when the sheep were properly led by their shepherds, despite MI5 being as big a gang of murdering blackguards as the 14th Company, who are now integrated into the SRR.

[i]“I firmly believe that the purpose of running agents is not only to prevent terrorist killings, but also to bring about the arrest of terrorists.” – Gordon Kerr

“I give, of course, considerable weight to the fact that he passed on what was possibly life-saving information in respect of 217 threatened individuals.” – the Judge at the trial of British agent and mass murderer Brian Nelson, imposing a lenient sentence after being told by Gordon Kerr, 14th Intelligence Company, that the acts amounting to state-sponsored terrorism had saved more lives than it had taken

“I could only find maybe two cases where the information given by Nelson may have been helpful to the Security Forces in preventing attacks.” – Nicholas Benwell of the Stevens Inquiry, expressing incredulity at the claims made by Gordon Kerr

“I cannot think of one occasion where the information provided by Nelson led to any of the activities you describe.” – Nicholas Benwell of the Stevens Inquiry, when asked by Panorama Nelson’s activities had led to terrorists being arrested or guns recovered[/i]

The question that nationalists should be asking themselves is just how far they want to be integrated into the British system by this process, because the State is intent on taking them all the way. It isn’t just the violent means to a republican end that they are being led to abandon but the republican end itself.

Your analysis is, from what I tell, spot on. Orde is angry about the leak about the SRR, although apparently it did emanate from the Board. Hope that person is happy with the subsequent chain of events.

Well, you might want to check who spun those two ‘facts’ to you. In regard to the former, the PoC, which the Shinners tout (no pun intended) as the turning point was, in fact, part of the constitutional framework of NI since partition. In regard to the latter, the GFA was not ratified in the Republic of Ireland. We voted on the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which amended Articles 2 and 3 to remove the Republic’s territorial claim to Her Majesty’s sovereign territory of Northern Ireland.

The spinners might be the same folks who are now spinning the line to the muppets who support them that the dissidents are criminals but the Shinners weren’t, so it’s okay to inform on the dissidents but it wasn’t okay to inform on the Shinners – which is why the Shinners don’t have to apologise for all those their ISU killed as informers (under the direction of British agents, John Joe Magee and Freddie Scapaticci). See, that level of control over the muppets is why the Shinners were worth their handlers’ investment in them.

That Sinn Fein want to portray those other republican groups as criminal, in order to justify their opposition to them, is merely another attempt at revisionism on their part.

Nah. It’s driven far more by current realities. It is also a fair shout that the GFA marks a significant turning point, given it was ratified by the entire populace, all be it in two separate referendums.

Not to mention part of an ongoing battle for control..

Battle for control? RSF ranting about names is about as meaningful as the DUP going on about the UUP name change.

There is a Kafkaesque symmetry going on there, and you can tell that the bloodshed, which is pointless, is the lesser of any wickedness being contemplated by SF.

The obvious answer to the question posed is that the Special Reconnaissance Regiment were requested by Orde because he needed their specialist counter-terrorism knowledge since his own police service has been reduced in its own capability.

And he didn’t tell the Policing Board because he either didn’t trust them not to leak that information and/or he knew that if that information was made public it would undermine Sinn Féin’s efforts to portray those other republican paramilitary groups as criminal.

He’s canny, politically, like that.

And from what we can tell, if Vincent Kearney hadn’t reported it, no-one would have known about it.

That Sinn Fein want to portray those other republican groups as criminal, in order to justify their opposition to them, is merely another attempt at revisionism on their part.

Not to mention part of an ongoing battle for control..

An interesting piece by McCann, not least for outlining very clearly how you are mistaken in another thread for suggesting Sinn Fein have been vaccilating in their approach to dissident republicans.