Sunday, April 13, 2008
Undercover Diplomat - “more like politicians now, than capos”
The third and final clip from The Undercover Diplomat is the shortest of the three at only 35 seconds. It’s Powell’s comment on a visit to Downing St on 5th July 2005 by Adams and McGuinness, a few months after the events noted in the first clip. The Provisional IRA statement was made public on 28th July. Transcribed from the clip: [reading] “It’s funny. They do seem more like politicians now, than capos.” [To camera] “I think I felt a sense of pride. Not proud in myself, I think, but proud of what they had achieved. It was a bit like watching your children graduate from college. You thought ‘fantastic’. Now they’re free, now they’ve done it, and they’re on their own.”
Pete Baker @ 07:00 PM
“pride,not for myself but for them;like children that had grown up and gone to college”
Ye big thick paddy,nearly civilized now,nearly...just another 20 years and your united paddyland........Posted by on Apr 13, 2008 @ 07:53 PM“I think I felt a sense of pride. Not proud in myself, I think, but proud of what they had achieved. It was a bit like watching your children graduate from college. [not clear] fantastic. Now they’re free, now they’ve done it, and they’re on their own.”
“Now that we’ve trained them, they’re ready to betray the Irish people just like we have done for eight centuries. Goody.
“In fact, they’ve actually taught us a few things about betraying Ireland’s sense of decency over the course of the Troubles. It is so awfully good.”
The Babylonians linking up with the Antichrist. For more click on my name and follow links.
Posted by on Apr 13, 2008 @ 07:59 PMPete this just more of your anti-Sinn Fein propaganda!
Posted by on Apr 13, 2008 @ 09:31 PMPete this just more of your anti-Sinn Fein propaganda!
??
How is that? History is history.
Interesting clips Pete and taken together with Mick’s Guardian blog - very interesting. I agree with Mick’s take over there that the reason Powell and the British could send in an undercover diplomat was due to the high level of infiltration. I doubt this could happen with other groups such as the Taliban, since the same level of infiltration would be absent???
Posted by on Apr 13, 2008 @ 10:41 PMI think I felt a sense of pride. Not proud in myself, I think, but proud of what they had achieved. It was a bit like watching your children graduate from college. You thought ‘fantastic’. Now they’re free, now they’ve done it, and they’re on their own.”
what a patronizing comment
This individual obviously has a racist view of the Irish.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:02 AMDC “Pete this just more of your anti-Sinn Fein propaganda”
what are you on about DC this article is not just speculation it has come right from the horses mouth Tony Blairs right hand man. My god this is just another piece of evidence that ADAMS and friends in Sinn Fein have really sold the Repubican cause out, they were wined and dined by the british government, what must Republicans and activists who for years were in rooms and halls around ireland listening to so called senior Republicans giving what we were told was sensitive information on the state of the negotiations? All lies British ministers writing and directing Sinn Fein and IRA statements? Ten years of lying and cheating.
All BULLSHIT the British have made complete fools of the Republican Movement they have manipulated the Republican movement and looks like they have been central in decision making within Sinn Fein for years changing policy and which would change their direction in time without anyone even knowing it was happening.
They now have Sinn Fein exactly where they want them administrating British rule in the North of Ireland, Direct rule by proxy, what was it all for?Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:05 AMheck
“This individual obviously has a racist view of the Irish.”
Actually it’s a particularly specific comment.
And it’s a comment based on several years of direct communication with the individuals concerned.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:11 AMGerry
The British have already tried talking with the Taliban, although a recent attempt was scuppered by the Americans. I think the two diplomats expelled afterwards were from NI, BTW.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:39 AMstill a prat i see pete
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 02:52 AMIt was a bit like watching your children graduate from college. Now they’re free, now they’ve done, and they’re on their own.
That’s quite touching, in a fatherly, colonial sort of way, n’est pas? Gerry and Martin will just love Jonathan Powell (or should we say P O’Neill?) for that.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 11:14 AMHard as it is for some Unionists not merely to take in that, we’ve won, but in addition, our most most murderous enemies have been humiliated in the process, it’s the inability *still* of ‘grass roots’ Republicans to take in just how far up the arse they’ve been shafted by their own leaders that still brings the biggest Monday morning smile. Good on you Gerry: you’re still there. Much like the Union, crown forces, Stormont, &c;.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 11:36 AMMy problem with this is that it is bad history. The final deadlock was not decommissioning but policing.
You would think from this that Gerry pulled the whole thing out of a hat after the Northern Bank robbery.
And that Paisley believed that Adams and McG had been ‘redeemed’. I don’t think Paisley’s theology has changed that much!
Television always rushes to simplify things; here the simplification is just too great.Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 11:50 AMI love the way Ahem and some other unionists think that they have ‘won’ by being sure of maintaining the union, at the best, for within their lifetime. F**k their kids and ongoing generations. Still, goes with the ilk that deserted their brethren in the south when partition was introduced I suppose. Gives such a lovely picture of the mentality of unionists—I’m alright Jack, f**k those who comes after me!
Meanwhile, republicans will be happy to know they have moved towards their goal. It may not happen in their lifetime, but its closer now than yesterday, and it may come quicker than anyone thinks. Weirder things have happened (chuckle brothers!).
On another point, the condescending crap is music to the ears of loonies in the dissident groupings. They will be showing this to potential new recruits for years. Pr**ks on both sides, will they never learn?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:40 PMmalachi
Incomplete rather than “bad”, I’d suggest.
And interesting in the detail, and the perspective of Powell [and the British Government].
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:57 PMYes, Pete, there were gems. My favourite was Adams saying he hadn’t understood Powell’s bad mood at Clonard until he had heard about the bank robbery; we’re to believe that Powell knew before Adams did.
The cheek of the man!Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 01:46 PMYeah Mayoman, your concerns are heartfelt and painfully sincere, aren’t they? I mean, your fear of succour being given by [shock! horror! hide the children!] a posting on a blog to those irredeemably evils b*st*rds, the dissident groupings! Why those scum, they ... they ... murder people! they ignore the wishes of the peaceful, constitutional, democratic majority! They even, some of them, claim better to speak for the people of Ireland than the people of Ireland do themselves at every election! The swine: is there anything they haven’t learnt from murdering Mart and grassin’ Gez?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 02:13 PMMalachi
Indeed.
Of course, he could only have heard about the robbery after the meeting or else he would have mentioned it to Powell at the time..
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 02:14 PMAll I can say Ahem, in the words of the great Harry Enfield is, ‘calm down hey, calm down’.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 02:42 PMBeing, to cite the same great locus, considerably richer than yeauw, I am (calm). And still laughing at Republicans - maybe it’ll be that final quarter inch that wakes them up?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 02:49 PMAh, I hit the right peurile note then. Laugh away. Just remember the saying about he who laughs last, and, as was the actual substance of the point I directed at you (I think you replied to my point on what was said by Powell, sorry if you thought the last para was directed at you), this ‘game’ has a long time to run.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:00 PMI’m still genuinely interested in finding out why you consider ‘dissident groupings’ to be such bad things and people, for, presumably, they things they have done, or will do? Yet at the same time you don’t, it equally seems, appreciate why so many Unionists still find the prospect of ex-dissident-groupulet members, Murderin’ Mart n’ Grassin’ Gez to be quie so shuddersome?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:06 PMBecause Ahem, as has been pointed out ad nauseum on here, there are very few blood-clean hands in Stormont at the moment. But, we have a situation where most have renounced violence (UUP/UVF still in alliance?). Now, the dissidents haven’t (as neither have most of the loyalist groupings).
Part of the driving force of republicanism is the honest belief that the Irish have been looked down upon, and shat upon, by the British. Powell continues that tradition. It will be easy for dissidents to use that. In the sense that nothing has changed. Thats all I was saying. Does that mean I find the antics of the SF/IRA, UUP/UDA/UVF DUP/UR/UVF less shuddersome? Not a jot! But why throw fuel on a fire you are trying to extinguish? It just smacks of typical British foolishness through arrogance. Could we have not left out the condescension? Or was he too thick to realise he was being condescending?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:22 PMRobinson never murdered anyone. Nor did Donaldson. Or Empey. Or Kennedy. Or Dodds. Or Foster. Or Wilson, or, well I could go on, for each and every one of the Unionist MLAs - not one of them murdered anyone. You can’t even start with Murderin’ Mart. The false equivalence you, for some reason we can speculate upon, feel compelled to assert simply doesn’t exist. One lot - no killers, the other lot, well just how many? From Deputy First Minister down.
As for being patronised, and this somehow driving the poor, wee lambs mental, whereas left unpatronised they’d stay snarling just at their own reflections, I have to tell you - that’s as patronising a view of your fellow Republicans I’ve ever heard. Personally I think they’d got a degree more self-control than that. After all, no one has patronised them more painfully than their own leaders have, and we’ve yet to see them throw their toys out of the pram over that. And by ‘pram’ and ‘toys’ I mean, ‘murder’ anyone - you know, the way they used to be so keen on doing, but we all now should forget about.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:34 PMIf you stop at the gunmen, you let the real killers off scot free. Thats all I’ll say. No point re-treading old ground.
I don;t think you answered my point at all. Treating equals in a negotiation process as ‘a bit like watching your children graduate from college...etc’. Is condescending, arrogant bullshit. I ask you why he felt he needed to say that? I think its becuase he is an old type arrogant British pr**k. Forget the blame game for a mo, just give me your view on why he felt he needed to denigrate the people he dealt with in good faith?
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:42 PMYou’re engaging in habitual ethno-smearing by postulating something you call an ‘old type British pr*ck’. There’s no such thing, save in your evidently deep-set sectarian mindset. And still you can’t see why you’re doing exactly the same thing in claiming that Republicans are, in effect, such mentally disturbed children that if you say the wrong thing in front them they’ll not be able to help themselves, but will be forced, by your words, to go off and kill some poor ould sods.
As far as your absurd counter-argument about killers goes, I sense even you’re embarrassed. To repeat. No Unionist MLAs have murdered anyone. Is it even a minority of Sinn Fein ones who can claim the same thing? And if you can’t see just how ingrained your own communual sectarianism is, try imagining that statistic reversed, and just how much Republican whining, I mean, justified moral outrage there’d rightly be about it.
Posted by on Apr 14, 2008 @ 03:52 PM
