Reply #77: Firstly, HamdenRice,

[Chomp]

you have implied 2 things about me in your above posts:

1. That I don't understand the distinction between the IRA and Sinn Fein
2. I've never heard of Stakeknife

With the greatest of respect (and I am going to try and be polite in this post) both of these insinuations are ludicrous.

On the first point, it is impossible to live in Ireland and not understand the distinction. Let me repeat: IMPOSSIBLE. Kids learn about it in school. The difference between the 2 has been the single biggest issue in Northern Irish politics over the last 15 years. Gerry Adams has been grilled on that very subject in the media every day for decades. The issue has been the perennial blockage to political progress in the current peace process.

But somehow you think I am unable to grasp the subtlety of the distinction? I hope you'll appreciate that your assertion is so self-evidently implausible as to stand no serious scrutiny.

On the second issue, the Stakenife affair was front page news here for about 2 months when the story first broke. It was also all over the Irish, Northern Irish, British, and indeed world, media. I was living in Belfast at the time and had many journalist friends who were working on TV shows about the very subject

You seem to think you have stumbled across a killer piece of insider info with Stakeknife, but you haven't. Look, it was perhaps the biggest news story on Northern Ireland that year:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,9061,955589,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeknife
http://www.tenerifenews.com/cms/front_content.php?client=1&lang=1&idcat=8&idart=3882
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0862788439/202-3040041-7667844
http://www.sundayherald.com/33921
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article356668.ece
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=685647
http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0624/stakeknife.html

The story even made it into the Tenerife Times!! (And by the way that last link is to RTE, the Irish national broadcaster – the BBC's Irish counterpart. You seem a bit muddled on this point.)

But you seem to think that maybe I missed all this Stakeknife business? LMFAO. Come on man. So when you ask the rhetorical question "but you knew that, right?", the answer is yes, I knew that.

So let’s stop being silly. Ok, let's move onto the substantive issue.

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Here is the dailykoff’s statement (post 54): “p.s. the point is that many London/Belfast bombings. in the 1980s were not the work of the IRA. They were false-flag operations carried out by British intel agents.” HamdenRice then cites the Stakeknife affair in order to stand-up this assertion (post 64).


So, to break these points down into bite-size pieces:

1. Many bombings were not carried out the IRA
2. Rather, they were carried out by British intel agents as false-flag ops
3. Stakenife is an example of one of these agents.

I’ll explain why each of these assertions is incorrect.



1. All of the deaths listed in the BIRW link were the result of IRA operations, not British ones. IRA operations, not British ones. One more time: IRA operations, not British ones.

Nobody, including BIRW by the looks of things, is disputing that these were IRA operations, planned and executed by IRA members (including Stakeknife himself). Planned. Agreed upon. Carried out. By the IRA.

If they had not been IRA missions approved by the IRA Army Council, then these deaths would not have occurred. You’ll notice that many of the dead on the list are British informers (“touts”) and other people who aided the British or otherwise betrayed the IRA. Now surely you’ll admit that it wouldn’t make much sense for the British – in the shape of Stakeknife - to be murdering their own informants, would it?

The fact that the British had an agent in the IRA who potentially could have tipped them off about these murders does not change the fact that they were IRA operations, not British ones.

The IRA were responsible for the bombings and killings in Belfast and London that you are talking about. They have admitted to most if not all of them in recent years. But I have never heard them say that the Brits were responsible for any of the operations that the IRA had been blamed for. Never.



2. First things first, so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet:

“False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

Whatever the myriad motives behind British political murder in Northern Ireland over the years (and there were many), blaming the IRA was NEVER one. Never. I cannot think of one instance in 30 years of conflict where this was the case.

Why would the British bother with “false flag” ops anyway? The IRA were causing quite enough mayhem all by themselves in the 70s and 80s, so the British would have had no motive whatsoever to fix anything up. In your language, they didn’t need a new Pearl Harbour (or even a first one for that matter).

More importantly: if the Brits wanted to set off black flag ops, why would they need an agent (Stakeknife) INSIDE the IRA to carry them out? Why not just go around planting bombs and blaming the IRA?

No, your conspiracy is running away from the facts here. British efforts at the time were 100% dedicated to defeating the IRA and NOT any other MIHOP-style fucking around. That was just not the way things worked. It is fantasy land, and having been to Derry’s Bogside and Belfast’s Falls Road, I can tell you they are not fantasy land.

Saying that the British were out faking IRA operations is absolutely, totally wrong.



3. So, to the final assertion: Stakeknife was a British intel agent within the IRA carrying out these false flag ops on behalf of the Brits.

Is that what you think the British used their agents within the IRA to do? To go around setting off bombs to blame the IRA?

LMFAO. Too much James Bond boys.

Here is a snip from Hamden’s own BIRW link, which is actually very good:

“Scappaticci is in his late fifties. He comes from a large, staunchly republican family in west Belfast. He has had homes in both Dublin and Belfast, where he lives at Riverdale Park North in Andersonstown. He joined the IRA in 1970 and was interned with Gerry Adams in 1971. He was interned again in 1974. He is reported as having approached British military intelligence in 1978 and volunteered to act as an informer after he was severely beaten up by a Belfast IRA man. He became the Force Research Unit’s most highly placed agent within the IRA. A dedicated team, known as “the rat hole” was set up within FRU solely to handle Stakeknife. Over time, Stakeknife rose through the ranks of the IRA to become a key figure in the “security department” known as the “nutting squad”, which sought out and eliminated informers and security force agents. He is alleged to have been second in command under John Joe Magee. The IRA is said to have executed over 50 people: 16 IRA members, 7 ex-members, and 24 others.”


Well that pretty well explains it. He was an IRA man turned informer. Very simple. No black flag ops. No MIHOPs. He was an informer. That’s not very hard to understand is it?

Stakeknife was not there to murder people on behalf of the British nor to perp any black flag bombings or any bullshit like that. That was emphatically not his function.

No, the British were much, much craftier than that. Stakeknife’s function was primarily intelligence-related. Indeed, the Stakeknife affair was such a big scandal in Britain when the story broke not because the British were implicated in murder, but rather because in protecting their informant they left the people on the BIRW list to the tender mercies of the IRA. The scandal was about information and inaction, not action and cover-up.

And ask yourself this: if you were the British and had control of this guy, would you tell him to start bumping off your own informers as documented in the BIRW link? Would that make sense?

Surely you don’t think that Stakeknife perped "IRA missions" on behalf of the British underneath the noses of the IRA leadership without being noticed by them? Jesus, of course not.

Characterising Stakeknife in the way you are shows precious little understanding of the long and complex tradition of British informants, agents and spies infiltrating Irish republican organisations. This has been happening for centuries, long before the IRA even existed. Stakeknife was simply the latest in a very, very long line of such British agents.

Indeed, you will no doubt be aware that one of these long-time informants, Denis Donaldson, was assassinated in Donegal a few weeks ago when his past caught up with him. Here's the story:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article356032.ece


......

Now, I can hear the reposnses already: "Oh, so the British never killed anyone in Northern Ireland?" and "What about collusion with loyalists"? Etc.

To which I reply: of course there were deaths as the result of British activity in NI over the years. But none of them come even close in nature to your characterisation of them. Stating that the British were responasible for deaths in Northen Ireland is like saying Santa is has a big white beard. That is to say, bloody obvious.

If one were to classify British political "murder" in Northern Ireland, it might break down into 3 catagoireis (off the top of my head):

a. Murders that were self-evidently such. British agents clearly and self-avowedly assassinating IRA members/republicans. An example would be the Gibraltar 3. That was a clear SAS hit.

b. Deaths as the result of collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries. This is still very murky and under-documented area but certainly happened.

c. As the result of individual, group or institutional army error, incompetence or malevolence. Bloody Sunday and the Lee Clegg case would fall into this category. Google either for more information.

(One could perhaps add a d., which would be the grey area in between these three).


But do any of these have anything to do with Stakeknife? With black flags? With the British intel agents setting off bombs in London and Belfsast? No, no, no, no (informed readers will get the joke here BTW.)

Is it news that the British were engaged in collusion? No. Were they reckless as to the deaths of IRA touts and others? Undoubtedly. Is there a government in the world fighting terrorists/freedom fighters (whatever) who doesn’t use these tactics? No. Was Stakeknife an agent of murder on behalf of the British? No. On behalf of the IRA? Yes. Did the British let people die to protect him? Probably. Did the British agents plant bombs to look like it was the IRA? No. Did the British murder their “enemies”? Yes. Has there ever been an instance of the British killing civilians with a bomb planted by the SAS or MI5? Almost certainly never. Did they whack members of the IRA when necessary? Yes.

Is that all too confusing a picture for you? Well it fucking SHOULD be because it WAS confusing. All of this was happening in the context of the wider war: IRA atrocities, punishment killings, Bloody Sunday, agents and double agents, the Shankill Buthcers, collusion with Loyalist death squads, police brutality, rioting on the streets, the Cival Rights movement etc. etc. A complex, ugly, dirt war indeed.

But instead of adressing these complexities, we get offensive, glib talking points with the SOLE PURPOSE of bolstering a MIHOP theory. No effort to engage with the actual Northern Irland issue. No. Just one huge exercise in self-justification and second-hand, second-rate, second generation hackery.


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I am not interested in arguing about this any more. You should read a terrific book called “The Dirty War” to better understand what was going on.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/041592281X/103-7216814-2099060?v=glance&n=283155

It was never, ever as simple as the nasty Brits planting bombs and blaming it on the IRA. That, with the greatest respect, is a disservice to the cunning and ruthlessness of both sides during the dirty war.


Peace.