Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Spies like us

OK, the posts proper start next Monday, but in the wake of the Denis Donaldson affair - the IRA ex-prisoner and senior Sinn Féin official who recently admitted to being a British spy for 20 years - I see the police have called at the homes of several prominent Sinn Féin members to warn them that the IRA are (allegedly) investigating them as potential spies within the Republican ranks.
 
Bluff or not, this is a tactical twist worthy of Frederick Forsyth. If the PSNI are telling the truth, it's jolly nice of them to tell these guys - people who probably look to their own ranks for security and couldn't give a stuff about the PSNI. If it's just all one great big Crown Forces bluff, you have to admire the sheer cheek of it ...
 
Turning up on a high-profile visit banging on the front doors of well-known Republican activists to let everybody know (or make everybody think) their own people have them on a hit-list they know nothing about is the political equivalent of sending a 7.5 Richter seismic shockwave through the entire Republican movement - turning the latent terror potential within the movement back on its prominent members until they disappear up their own armalites. Possibly.
 
Actually it's potentially so devastating, maybe it's got to be a ruse. But, like most great ruses, there may be a grain of truth in it that's simply been blown out of proportion for effect.
 
Something tells me it ain't over yet though.

2 Comments:

At 8:09 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have to confess, the whole situation confuses the hell out of me. I haven't been able to form a proper opinion about it yet.

S'pose it's best to wait and see what else arises out of this debacle.

 
At 5:23 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

What isn`t blown out of proportion for effect when it comes to undermining the republican movement ,Donaldson was probably outed because he wouldn`t take the fall and go along with the whole charade for the PSNI`S previous false accusation that there was a spy ring ,an accusation that brought the government down and conveniently covered Trimble`s ass at the time .A lifetime in exile in some tropical clime was probably a better option for the traitor than doing a few years in a N IRE jail .

 

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