Please don't misunderstand where I'm arguing from here, Ireland. I heartily wish that there weren't any breaches of the ceasefire, and deplore punishment beatings and all that crap. I also think that gathering the kind of information that would be useful for terrorist actions but would not be useful for political purposes of one sort or another is a serious mistake. And I think that using violent methods is totally counterproductive and has been disastrous. As the saying goes "It's worse than a crime, it's a mistake."

However I am also suspicious that more is going here than we are being told about, and that the picture which is being presented may be defective in various ways.

I think, for example, that the raids may well have intentionally been carried out in the way which the Chief Constable has said he regrets, with the object of causing maximum damage. And in the light of the apology the implication of that would be that this was not the intention of the Chief Constable, and there are elements within the police force which are acting on their own agenda, with the intention of sabotaging the Good Friday Agreement.

And there may well be elements within the IRA which have a similar goal.

I wouldn't trust anyone further than I could throw them, on either side. But the fact that you can't trust people doesn't mean you don't have to work together.