Spies Like Us

For the first time today I decided to take a glance at Balrog (my first and last), the poisonous republican site operated by a frequent visitor to ATW.  I also took at look at Slugger O'Toole to see if they managed to hit the nub of the whole Denis Donaldson affair.  Whereas Mr Gaskin is hurling profanity at Donaldson - saying 'touts are never forgiven or forgotten within republican communities', and calling Donaldson 'a piece of shit' (the literary capabilities of QUB law students must be something to behold), even the commentators at Slugger managed to miss the whole sorry episode behind this saga.  So, for the benefit of ATW regulars, I will put you in the picture.  Remember, you read it here first!!

Nobody has actually explored the following and very crucial points: If Donaldson, 'Scap' and others (and there will be others) managed to operate incognito in the highest echelons of the republican movement for many, many years, how come the British State never managed to crush the IRA in a relatively bloodless fashion?  After all, if Sinn Fein/IRA were infiltrated with spies, surely the terrorists could and would have been put out of business in a relatively short space of time.  Moreover, there have been at least two occasions in the last twenty five years when the IRA were at the point of being defeated, only to have their Provo bacon saved by the commencement of political initiatives designed to put them centre-stage and resurrect the terrorists and their arsenals as powerful bargaining tools in a choreographed endeavour of appeasement to central republican demands.  The reasons why came to the fore, in my opinion, last night with the Donaldson affair:

THE BRITISH STATE NEVER SOUGHT THE DEFEAT OF THE IRA; IT SOUGHT THEIR PARTIAL METAMORPHOSIS TO CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS IN RETURN FOR THE GRANTING OF INCREMENTAL STEPS TOWARDS REPUBLICAN GOALS (OR AS FAR AS THOSE GOALS WERE COMPATIBLE WITH LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL PROTOCOLS).  IN OTHER WORDS, HOW MANY LIVES COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED HAD THE UK STATE CARRIED OUT ITS OBLIGATIONS TO PROTECT ITS CITIZENS AND CRUSH SUBVERSIVES?  We will now never know.

This brings us to the role of the intelligence services.  State intelligence in the UK has never operated at the behest of political considerations.  It's job IS to protect the United Kingdom from scum who seek to destroy it.  The trouble for successive governments, who wanted a working relationship with Sinn Fein/IRA - often because of their own historical prejudices about 'Ireland', is that the intelligence services were too bloody good at their job.  Thus, every time the spectre of Provo defeat/republican humiliation loomed large, in would step the government to save the day.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what happened last night!!

For my part I am convinced there was a Sinn Fein spy ring at Stormont.  What is now clear is that Donaldson was a plant to try to circumvent this practice, rather than a tool in the Sinn Fein spy cog itself.  I believe that the government wanted to collapse the charges of spying to make it easier for Sinn Fein/IRA to look respectable in the eyes of the media come January, when talks about enthroning the animals back into power were supposed to start.  By putting the story in the public domain, the government must have known that the identity of a key spy would be revealed, but it did not care.  Denis Donaldson was, I contend, thrown to the Sinn Fein wolves, not by the 'securocrats', but by a government anxious for the republican movement to look as squeaky clean as possible in the New Year.

Next we come to Donaldson himself.  Knowing full well that he might end up in a ditch with a Provo bullet in the back of his head (so much for the 'cessation of hostilities') he had to make a deal with his former comrades - a deal which had the blessing of government.  After all, if Donaldson had been killed, the Provo commitments would have been shown to be what we know they are in reality - downright lies!!  I believe he approached Sinn Fein last evening and sought a bargain, whereby his life would be spared if he went public (an extraordinary thing for any spy to do) and claimed that the spy ring was, in effect, a fabrication of Special Branch.  As a result, both Sinn Fein and the government get what they wanted.  The former gets the newspaper propaganda scoop of the month and perpetuates its stasis of MOPEry, and the latter gets a virginal white Sinn Fein party ready to do business with democrats in 2006.

Finally, all the above skulduggery brings us to the democrats of Northern Ireland.  If this lousy, rotten to the core, government is complicit in sacrificing a key member of the intelligence services to keep its dalliance with Sinn Fein/IRA in full flow, what else is it prepared to sacrifice.  And how committed will other spies be in uncovering the dark heart of the Provos if they think they are going to be shafted in the same way as Mr Donaldson?  The plot thickens!!!

Comments

[Madradin Ruad]

I Wonder how he compromised himself ?

Good post Andrew . Two touts - was Scap at the University of Long Kesh ? Ed Moloney hints at a more senior British Agent in his book, a third man as it were.

I wonder if the O'Philby has a Beard ? ;)

A few more than 3 methinks; I wonder which will be the MAIN man

[PS]

Two points - I've seen you describe people you don't like as much worse than a "piece of shit"

And also it isn't your first visit to balrog, thats where you got the QUB collusion story from.

[james orr]

And it is much bigger.

Remember that Sean MacStiofain, IRA "Chief of Staff" in the late 60s / early 70s was born as John Stephenson in England, and served in the RAF. He was a double agent, informing for the Garda.

If you flick through "The Kincora Scandal" by Chris Moore, you'll see that William McGrath was instrumental in founding both the UVF and UDA in the late 1960s. He was an MI5 agent. And one of his sordid paedophilic associates was the founder of the Red Hand Commandos. It has been said that at least 1 out of every 4 loyalist paramilitaries works for Special Branch.

So... British intelligence controls both the republicans and the loyalists for 40+ years, creating untold murder, mayhem and suffering in Northern Ireland (and further afield).

Read Frank Kitson. (see http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27/054.html / also http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2005/09/professor-paul-wilkinson-frank-kitson.html / also http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2005/030805faketerrorism.htm)

Maybe Northern Ireland has been nothing but a grand political laboratory, a plaything for those who had the power to manipulate our differences in an experiment to see how far they could push us?

And of course, the age-old question. Who benefits?

[Madradin Ruad]

Isn't this interesting -

Senior republican with inside knowledge says Finucane was in the IRA ... Oh wait,say republicans, he was a traitor and a tout so what he says is worthless

Senior republican with inside knowledge says there was no SF Spyring, it was all the securocrats ... surely as this senior republican was also a traitor and a tout then what he's saying is ...worthless.

Erm....

[martin]

Had the British been interested in peace they could have ordered all their agents near the top of both the Republican and Loyalist military machines to all start deserting their respective movements---I wonder would either side have had more than 50 members when all these agents were gone.

[Madradin Ruad]

And also it isn't your first visit to balrog, thats where you got the QUB collusion story from.

I read Andrew as meaning that it was his first and last visit to Balrog today Paddy.

[Colm]

Isn't this all exciting. Like a John Le Carre novel , with a bit of Blarney thrown in.

[Madradin Ruad]

Colm - reminds me of the wonderful Saki short story were the little boy is punished for saying there's a frog in the bread and milk ;)

The Lumber Room

THE children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas' basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome bread-and-milk was enlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas, was that the older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance.

[English Innocent]

Why would the British government be interested in boostering organisations that try and kill it and its reputation whilst costing billions?

[Sean Fear]

I'll put forward a suggestion, which I cannot prove, but on which I'd welcome comment.

It's clear that the IRA, like the UDA, has been riddled with government spies at a high level for years. As Andrew says, the IRA could have been very seriously damaged, given the high level at which these people were operating.

Again as Andrew says, the government have been trying to accomodate the Republican movement for years - starting with the Anglo Irish agreement, and everything that followed subsequently. That was the carrot.

The stick was the assasination of members of the IRA. We know that from 1988 to 1994, loyalist terrorists simply had much more success at killing IRA members (see "UVF" by Henry Macdonald). My suggestion is that high ranking Republicans were quite willing to pass on information about the movements of some of their colleagues to their handlers, and this in turn was passed onto loyalist terrorists who took advantage of this.

Any views?

[The Troll]

"If this lousy, rotten to the core, government is complicit in sacrificing a key member of the intelligence services to keep its dalliance with Sinn Fein/IRA in full flow, what else is it prepared to sacrifice."

Nothing short of all your lives

Who can we trust?

[frodo]

Fantastic,
simple answers
Andrew here's what you do: unionists as much as republicans are fed up with this sticking rotten corrupt UK gov't.
Get together and get the insidious presence of the British State out of Ireland.
STOP WHINGEING , GROW UP and run your own affairs.
It's not rocket science is it?

[Aileen]

The 6:58 post was me!

[Sean Fear]

It's not as simple as that Frodo. It's quite possible to identify with a particular country, in this case the UK, while loathing its Establishment. After all, do you think the Irish political establishment is any less rotten than our own?

[Madradin Ruad]

Sean - One author dropped pretty large hints that a certain high ranking terrorist solved a problem with one difficult Area at Loughgall.
Far-fetched ? - If you'll authorise friends being tortured and shot or children being abducted and shot then anything is possible.

[Sean Fear]

"Who can we trust?"

A question which both Unionists and Republicans must be asking themselves right now, Aileen.

[Madradin Ruad]

For all it's faults Frodo the UK establishment is better than the Jacobins.
You'll make no progress while you have people like Adams , McGuinness, Ferris and Gerry Kelly as the face of Republicanism.

Sean

I ask myself this regularly. Considering what is at stake, the enemy and this includes our governement and SF/IRA will have infiltrated every bloody thing. This includes the loose coalition of people ostensively opposing the otr legislation. For all anyone knows it could be me!

[Aileen]

That anonomous post was me again!

[Sean Fear]

I suppose the questions Republicans need to ask themselves are (a) whether the current leadership of Sinn Fein were aware that senior members of their organisation were "traitors" and (b) whether they were content with that fact (if they were looking to cut a deal).

[Madradin Ruad]

Sean - it might even have suited them (the Adams faction ) to have him there as a conduit. I remember reading a thriller based round an idea that a Russian defector was "betraying" his country on the orders of the then president who was having a difficult time controlling a hard-line faction. Anything is possible.

[frodo]

MR and sean,
You'll still be better off running your own affairs, you have to work things out together. There can be no other way.
A few weeks ago we heard that loyalists has lists of 400 republicans, so in that respect both sides are as bad as each other.
Yous have to be weened off the nipple, and change your own nappies. Sorry and good luck ;)

[Madradin Ruad]

Frodo - how do you work things out with people who abducted twin children from school and shot the one with learning difficulties ?
That was mainstream republicanism, the same people are still running the Jacobins today.