Thursday, August 03, 2006
Jackie earns his payout after bloodless expulsion…
THE UDA feud appears to be over. After the flight of Shoukri supporter Alan McClean to England last night, the remnants of the north Belfast ‘dissidents’ were accepted back by the ‘inner council’.
Belfast Gonzo @ 08:40 PM
The answer is to ficus support on their victims not them. We need to be asking them what they need to get these guys off their backs.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 07:21 AMCan someone tell me.......... Just what is the UDA defending?
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 07:31 AMdefending? Hmmmmm
Think protecting, think protection!
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 07:37 AMG & T’s all round in the K club tonight then. Let’s see in eighteen months or so who of the current crop of spokesmen of brigadiers is next to be turned on and suddenly be outed as “bad” UDA by the “good” UDA. You couldn’t make it up
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 08:35 AM“Their supporters will see that these men are able to move in these circles and deliver political and economic benefits to their community and their positions will be solidified and the process of their transformation will, hopefully, be bedded down.”
Yeah sure.
Look how well it has worked where the PUP and UVF are concerned.Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:00 AMDualta
“It all comes back to the same central question. How do we deal with paramilitary groups and their close-knit community support structures?”
“First of all, we should not get snookered by their rhetoric, and the pretence that they’re still bona fide terrorists with a cause. You need to treat them like criminals. That may mean, for example, not cutting peace deals with them. Or territorial deals. It means rounding them up and arresting them as you would any other criminal gangs.”
And a new group is now leading the UDA? Like?.. oh yeah, Jackie MacDonald… full of rhetoric.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:09 AMWHy do these fannies always run over here?
You scumbags aren’t wanted over here plagueing commnunities with your drugs
f**k off
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:20 AMIts interesting how when people within the UDA fall out with Jackie Mc Donald they either end up dead, in jail or removed from the country with the help of the PSNI. Whose agenda is being served. If I were a UDA foot soldier I would be wary of crossing Jackie or his friends will deal with you.
Is Jackie McDonald a brussel?
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:24 AM“Is Jackie McDonald a brussel?”
Of course he is. That’s why S E Antrim have left the inner council. The ones around McDonald are either too stupid to twig on or couldnt care less as long as their making money and getting rank.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:34 AMA brussel? dunno but he’s certainly a vegetable of some descripion…
I would imagine that Jackie will soon find an issue of some sort which he’ll use to flex his muscles on to show that he’s still the hardman.
Probably won’t be an internal issue (is there anyone left?)but rather something populist like the siting of flags or a parade in a sensitive area. Then again the football season’s starting again-when do Donegal Celtic go to Windsor Park?Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:38 AMPeking,
The UVF are still a threat to society, there is no doubt about that, but they are not the threat they once were. They are changing. As I said earlier, this is a cultural issue. These ways of living are deeply ingrained in our society and they will take time to change. But there can be no doubt that the UVF and their supporters have changed since the start of the peace process, for the better.
Pete,
If people break the law they should be tried and sentenced. That’s pretty straight forward. However, treating political activists purely as criminals has been tried and tested here before and has failed utterly.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:39 AMIf the two Governments introduce some form of joint authority after the November devolution deadline passes, is there scope for a physical force response from the UDA and UVF?
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 09:47 AM“But there can be no doubt that the UVF and their supporters have changed since the start of the peace process, for the better.”
The UVF have killed at least 30 people since the start of the peace process. Far more than they killed in the years leading up to it. Off the top of my head, we have had Garneville, Whiterock and last weeks brutal killing of the Scottish man all in the last year or so. All the work of the UVF.
This should teach us that if you let these kind of people think they can do just as they like - then thats exactly what they will do, anything they like.Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 10:03 AM“political activists”?
More rhetoric, dualta - see previous comment.
If they are political activists let them stand in elections.. oh, hang on, they already tried that, as the UDP
The current approach being taken by the governments is to grant them more political capital, and more money, for the same group to stand in elections again.
What was it Einstein is reputed to have said..?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 10:13 AMOk so what have the UVF got to do with this now?I thought this was all about the UDA?
Just trying to clarify the link srry guys not up to speed with all this(no pun intended!)Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 10:20 AMPete,
You don’t have to engage in electoral politics to be a political activist. Party politics is only one type of political activity.
My argument remains the same and no-one has provided me with a viable alternative on this thread.
This approach by the British and Irish goverments is the best way to deal with the problem of paramilitarism in our society.
Policing is, of course, necessary to prevent violence, but political problems require political solutions.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 10:25 AMWell now that this is over the UDA can get back to selling drugs, pimping women, extortion, and intimidation of the Catholic community well until the next feud. When will people this organisation is strangling the protestant community. They are un-elected thugs simple as that
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 11:37 AM“But there can be no doubt that the UVF and their supporters have changed since the start of the peace process, for the better.”
So what was their behaviour last September at Whiterock all about then?
Actually, I’ll answer that myself - it was about the UVF LOSING in their feud with the LVF. Think that sounds ridiculous? Read on:
The whole raison detre of the LVF was that Billy Wright wanted to break the UVF ceasefire in order to try and force an Orange march through a Catholic neighbourhood (in that case Drumcree). When he sent out his minions to murder Michael McGoldrick and was consequently thrown out of the UVF, he set up the LVF and the feud between the two organisations simmered ever since.
That was until last September, when the Secretary of State ruled the UVF’s ceasefire was over after they had fired at the police and army in order to try and force an Orange march through a Catholic neighbourhood (Springfield Road this time).
One month after the de-recognition of the UVF ceasefire, the LVF announced it was disbanding. Or rather retiring, job done.
Thus at the end of the day, the LVF won the argument with the UVF and therefore won the feud.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 11:56 AMI just love it when those who support the established Unionist Party’s like the UU and DUP act towards the UDA as if their own sh-- does not stink. They were quite happy to turn a blind eye or walk down the road arm in arm with leading loyalist paramilitaries when it suited their agenda.
What did these unionist party’s do for the loyalist working class areas, people did not wake up one morning to find the UDA/UVF in control. It was a slow process and the arm lock the loyalist paramilitaries have in some Working class communities came about due to the blind eye turned and the active encouragement of the security services, RUC, British government, Ian Paisley and a number of UUP leaders down the years.
Dualta is spot on, indeed many of us have thought for years that the more political loyalists have more in common with Republicanism than they do with those like Paisley.
Working class loyalist communities are some of the most neglected parts of the north, the schools and social services, lack of employment prospects are well below the average for the north and this can only be because the established party’s have failed these communities.These communities need to be targeted by politicians, for only when the aforementioned standards are improved and alternatives to membership of paramilitaries are created, will the community as a whole turn their backs on paramilitaries, for they will then no longer be needed it to justify the sorry state of their community or protect them from a non existent threat.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 12:59 PMWas this the feud to end all feuds? How do we know there won’t be another one just round the corner? It’s all the UDA knows how to do, so why should we trust them now?
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 01:15 PMWhat is the qualification to be a uda brigadier?.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 02:02 PMmickhall
These working class communities you talk about as if, a) you know anything about them, and b) you actually give a shit about them, would these be the same ones that those other working class heroes that you rabidly supported for years, the provos, bombed and shot at for 30 years?
You weren’t too interested in working class solidarity then, were you.Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 02:09 PMpeking
I see you once again duck the issues I mentioned in my post, such as sub standard educational opportunities, high unemployment, low incomes and the toll de-industrialization has taken within many of the norths working class loyalist communities. Have you anything to offer beyond personal insults?
Fortunately not all loyalist are as bitter as you and last year i was given the opportunity by some of them to look at the educational opportunities, or rather lack of them within certain working class loyalist areas of Belfast and write an article on this subject.That this piece was published without being censored in a magazine which was jointly run by ex loyalist prisoners made me reassess many of my previous assumptions and yes prejudices.
I mention this because the man who co edited that magazine was Billy Mitchell, who recently died. when i read snide comments like that which peking made, I think of ex loyalist paramilitaries like Billy, an intellectual by anyone’s standards. A man who eventually became able to argue and debate with all and through that example taught some of us to do the same, not to concede what we believed, far from it, Billy himself always stood for the Union. But to search out a way so that differences do not always have to descend into hatred and violence.
An obit of Billy Mitchell by a Republican can be found here
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 05:14 PMBilly Mitchell obit
http://lark.phoblacht.net/AM02080610g.html
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 05:15 PM“… an intellectual by anyone’s standards.”
I didn’t know the man so can’t possibly comment on his intellectualism. But lets be honest Mick, if you were judging him against your own brain power he wouldn’t have to be Einstein now would he.
Posted by on Aug 04, 2006 @ 07:43 PM
