Friday, May 16, 2008
“How can you ask loyalists to decommission..”
Previously the de facto leader of the UDA, Jackie McDonald, told Channel 4 News why the UDA had held onto “the peoples’ guns” and how they would “do their best to maintain a sense of law and order in their own communities.” In a lengthy interview in today’s Irish News [no subs req for now] he revisited the topic [do you think he liked the photo? - Ed] and pointed to the recent attack on a policeman near Strabane.
“This week we have a policeman blown up with an under-car bomb,” [McDonald] said. “Now the dissidents may not have the same capacity the IRA had but the fact is this has happened and we don’t know when it will happen again or who will be the next target. How can you ask loyalists to decommission when we are sitting here not knowing when the next attack will be? There are criminal gangs now with more money and weapons at their disposal than paramilitaries on either side ever had. The police aren’t willing or able to deal with them and so we continue to be led by opinion within our own community.”
Of course, concern for the police hasn’t always been a priority for the UDA. But Jackie might be forgiven for thinking ‘where have all the good times gone..’ And there may also be some carotene-withdrawal symptoms involved..
Pete Baker @ 08:49 PM
One almost has to admire the manner in which Jackie McDonald, the self styled “brigadier” of an illegal criminal organisation announces to us that the fact that other terrorists tried to murder a policeman means that they (the UDA) have to keep their guns. This when last year it was the UDA firing at the police and when the first RUC officer murdered during the troubles was killed by loyalist terrorists.
Then McDonald points to criminal gangs which the police are unable or unwilling to deal with. He seems able to state this without appreciating the stunning irony that his is an illegal criminal gang which the police seem unable or unwilling to get rid of. Such action against the UDA would almost certainly be popular with his own community: apart from the criminals themselves, of course, who are the only “community” McDonald and his cronies have any interest in.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 10:16 PM“This week we have a policeman blown up with an under-car bomb,” [McDonald] said. “Now the dissidents may not have the same capacity the IRA had but the fact is this has happened and we don’t know when it will happen again or who will be the next target. How can you ask loyalists to decommission when we are sitting here not knowing when the next attack will be? There are criminal gangs now with more money and weapons at their disposal than paramilitaries on either side ever had. The police aren’t willing or able to deal with them and so we continue to be led by opinion within our own community.”
This statement is conspiracy to commit terrorism. I suppose Jackie is lucky he isn’t a Muslim.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 10:29 PMI know Sluggerdom has been this route before, and I know it should not worry me, but ...
I actually had to spend a couple of moments trying to recall what the tosh about “the people’s guns” reminded me. Flag? Princess? Beer (and the famous “very fat man")? All trite, but none quite right.
Then it came to me: the “workers’ bomb”. Of course.
Back in 1960 the Communist Party of Great Britain (that was a time when Ireland still had two of them, on a partition basis: so much for international solidarity) came out for unilateralism, just before the Labour Party did. (Now there‘s another promise kept.) This threw the Trots into total tizz-mode. Nor let us forget that Ireland contributed significantly to the jollity and mirth of the Trot SLL through the antics of Gerry Healey and Brian Behan.
The CP, pre-Hungary, had once welcomed the Soviet H-bomb as “a powerful advance for the peace movement”. Now the SLL debated the nature of the Soviet Union, and whether it deserved to keep the Bomb. At issue was whether the USSR was a “degenerate workers’ state” which had to be protected against the capitalists. The CPGB were denounced because unilateralism was treachery, failed to recognise the unconditional need to defend the Soviet motherland, and to recognise that the Soviet Bomb was the supreme achievement of the working class, etc., etc.
Gerry Healey’s contribution to the debate was a stirring plea: “This is a debate of dialectics on the one hand and empiricism on the other: so let’s not cloud the issue with facts.” Indeed.
The point is that out of this miasma came a decent lyric, bits of which come now to my mind, begging to be updated to this situation:
Then raise the Workers’ Bomb on high!
Beneath its shroud we’ll gladly die!
For though it sends us all to hell,
It kills the other side as well.So the UDA are following, unconsciously, a well-trodden path:
Degenerated though it be,
It’s still the workers’ property.It’s proof positive of the Lincolnian truth: You can fool all the people only part of the time, or only part of the people all of the time, but you can always fool yourself all of the time.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 10:32 PMThe cops should round up McDonald and his armed cronies and stick them all in jail. McAleese should not be talking to him or his ilk. Just like those Shoukri guys from North Belfast, filthy criminal low life scum.
The attack on the officer was a disgace but it is for the police to respond, not a self appointed paramilitary thug who thinks he is going to protect society with his illegal guns and assorted criminal activities.
Let me see - they are an illegal organization, they have not decomissioned, are they getting funding too? Why are the police not rounding them up? Where is the Unionist demand for UDA decomissioning? Where is the Sinn Fein demand?
Why is society tolerating this situation?Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 10:48 PMMalcolm
“You can fool all the people only part of the time, or only part of the people all of the time, but you can always fool yourself all of the time.”
Indeed.
Although some may have indicated a deliberate willingness to be fooled.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 11:36 PMGone are the days when the UDA could bring NI to a halt by mass-strinking & intimidation.
The PSNI already run the UDA (and all other Loyalist paramilitaries).
Why else were the UFF stood down by Jackie & Co(y) last November?
Similiar to the way in which MI6 moulded the Provo leadership to suit their liking & objectives, don’t tell me that RUC/PSNI Special Branch haven’t completed the same exercise on the Loyalist side.
Much like PIRA, the UDA haven’t gone away, you know.
However, sometimes the Devil you know is better than the Beast you don’t.
Scant consolation to the relatives & friends of all those affected by 3 decades of religuous & civil strife; unfortunately, such is the under-belly of life in NI.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 11:37 PMIf these are *truly* “the people’s guns,” then when, pray tell, will the people get an accounting of said guns?
Enough of this farce. Round up these hoods and treat then like hoods.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:00 AMThe days when the North could be brought to a standstill was aided and abetted by popular politicians.
Who are now alcoholics or in power.
People choose.
People left behind tha dangerous rich, who will employ mercenaries.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:10 AM‘People left behind tha dangerous rich, who will employ mercenaries.’
Anyone particular in mind here Jo ?? :D
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:24 AMPeter
Tony Blair, in relation to Mallon,
that’s the reverse of the commoner-commoner wedding in Windsor, Blair is one of us, because we take anything.
When Blair moves his lips, you know what you’re getting. More fool those who get fooled twice.
G.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 10:20 AMThe UDA have as much right to claim to speak for the people as any other organisations without a mandate.
By elevating one set of unelected men with guns we have all allowed this situation to develop.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:06 PMThe Greater Manchester Police would probably like the Loyalists to disarm..............
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 04:20 PMIf this guy is meant to be the leader of the UDA which is an illegal terrorist organisation..... then why on earth is he not rounded up and thrown into a prison cell? Disgraceful.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:33 PM
