BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: GUEST,The Boston boy
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 05:26 AM

Again the usual anti Irish rabble gather on the cat !

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 01:48 PM

Great to hear you again on an Irish Thread Wolfgang. The last time we met there you were totting up the total the PIRA killed in thirty years, which actually fell short of the number your natural born homeland killed in two raids in the North of Ireland in two visits ! Anyway yes there has always been informers within the ranks of the IRA and the Shinners, just as there were some great informers within the British army. That´s war, that´s conflict.

As to your question regarding feelings on the street Wolfgang, yes we regret it, and yes some big names hit the headlines within the last 16 months, regrettable and hard to forgive.

I will be the first to admit that it has hit the shinners on the doorstep. There is not the same impact there was regarding such news twenty years ago.

The shinners appear to most of us as a reborn party, sorry other than that I know little about them.

Hope they get the political process into gear when the D.U.P./ Third Force get off the toilet or crap.

Main thing is the war is over and peace is the order of the day, Oh sorry some catters don´t like to hear that !

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Teribus
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 12:01 PM

Walsigham created in his time probably the most efficient intelligenge networks the world has ever seen. James VI of Scotland used to complain bitterly that if anything happened in Scotland, Elizabeth would know about it at least one week before he did. Towards the end of her reign through Walsinghams efforts practically all the major riding families on the Scottish side of the border were in the pay and service of the English.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 05:22 AM

Teribus - you interest me. Elizabeth's spymaster - what did he do? I can't get past the doublet and hose and general gadzookery.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: GUEST,Paul Burke lost his wotsit
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 03:02 AM

Do you mean Walsingham Matilda?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 08:48 PM

Wolfgang,

To take a look at what a nation is capable of in terms of counter espionage and destabilisation take a look at the career of Walsingham.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 12:22 PM

don't mention the war....... Wolfgang.

I did once but I think I got away with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 11:11 AM

Groannnn....................

Subject: RE: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 09:51 AM

Did you know that Ian Paisley is secretly a Cardinal?

Subject: BS: Who's next? Sinn Fein/IRA and its touts
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 08:47 AM

Let me tell first that the Sinn Féin/IRA in the thread title is due to the length allowed and not my ignorance of the differences between the two organisations.

The first really prominent IRA man to be outed as a British agent was Freddie Scappaticci the deputy head of the IRA's internal security unit, the so called nutting squad that interrogated, tortured and executed suspected touts. There are few doubts now that the head of the internal security unit, the late John Joe Magee, too was a British spy. If that is true it means that British agents have executed other British agents (or executed innocent IRA men; innocent in the sense of not having worked for the British) in their double job as a mean to save their cover.

A recent article in Atlantic Monthly gives an interesting insight into this strategy.
I put it to Martin Ingram, the former spy handler, that in the case of Scappaticci, the British strategy had gone amok.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it went very much to schedule.”
“So you think—”
“I don’t think, I know. He was acting to orders.”
So the British government knew of Scappaticci’s killings?
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “The one preconception the IRA had is that if you are dirty—that is, if you have killed—then you cannot be an agent.” Scappaticci exploited that misapprehension. “His best protection,” Ingram continued, “was to keep killing.”
If that’s true, the British spy services beat the IRA by appealing to a belief that the United Kingdom wouldn’t sacrifice its own subjects—especially its own agents.

Late last year Denis Donaldson a man with seemingly impeccable Republican background and being portrayed on a famous photograph with hunger striker Bobby Sands has been outed as a British spy. It seems that this man had been able to scrap the North American IRA support within a few weeks. Complaints about him were disregarded by the leadership. This man was one of those responsible for the move from the armalite to the ballot box.

I have been asking myself in the last weeks how much the British intelligence has influenced the peace process. Such questions have also been asked in some Republican circles in the last months. A look into the dissident republican website The Blanket (in particular former IRA man Anthony McIntyre; read an article by him) or into the discussions in the Slugger O'Toole website will show that. Former FRU agent Martin Ingram (I have read three different 'real' names for him, most often Grantham, so I better stick to his chosen identity) also adds to the confusion in several message boards, on his own website and on the Cryptome website.

He has gone so far to more or less openly accuse the Adams/McGuinness leadership of having worked for the British since long. One of his more colourful tales goes like that: The agent 'stakeknife' can be found in different spellings in different documents. Only one of them was Scappaticci. The other still not outed is 'steak knife'. If one reads 'steak knife' one thinks of a butcher and if one thinks of a butcher in the context of the IRA one thinks immediately of...., you get the idea.

Martin Ingram who now claims sympathy for the republican side could be really telling what he thinks the truth is. But that's only one possible interpretation. He also could still be paid by British intelligence and only play the disgruntled former agent with the aim to make republicans nervous by false allegations.

Other allegations have been that the Loughgall ambush in which the East Tyrone IRA has been decimated has been made with the knowledge of part of the IRA leadership to take out some of the fiercest opposition to the peace strategy. Sinn Féin's first TD even has been pointed to as having informed the Britsh in that case. An other recent rumour is that the devastating Omagh bomb has been laid with the knowledge and cooperation of British intelligence to stifle budding defection from the Provisionals to dissident groups.

Well, reading all that leaves me a bit aghast. Even assuming that much of these rumours are just that namely unfounded rumours and that only a small part is true the British intelligence has a lot to answer. Their collusion with some loyalist murderers I have always considered for proven beyond reasonable doubt. But the number of IRA (and other republican groups) murders of which they had prior knowledge and which have been committed by IRA men also paid by the British has surprised me a bit. One spy killing a spy mate working for the same side to keep his own cover intact seemed more like a fiction thriller to me than reality.

But now even the picture of Martin McGuinness luring Frank Hegarty into his death by the nutting squad to save his own cover as the British agent seems remotely possible. If it's true the British top tout has stood and watched and given the commands while a British first class tout (Scappaticci) has executed a small fish British tout (Hegarty). I hope I'll live to read the true story one day. If the long time head of the IRA Northern command and chief of staff has actually been on the British payroll they have outdone themselves. On a purely professional level, one would be tempted to congratulate them but whether a democracy should have unit going that far in a dirty war is another question.

I'd like to hear what others who have followed the developments think, in particular those who have better knowledge than I who only reads websites and has a hard time telling which information is sound and which isn't.
- How do rank and file IRA men feel when the big touts live (in Italy or even in Ireland) whereas they would have been nutted by the IRA for less.
- Is it conceivable that the Adams/McGuinness leadership has since long colluded with the British to steer the IRA gently into peace?
- Is Martin Ingram believable?
- What do republicans in NI think about all this?
- And of course, who's next to be outed?

Wolfgang

P.S. Let me finish with a very cynical Anthony McIntyre quote: At times I feel like I joined a regiment of the British Army when I thought I was joining the IRA