I thought about fisking Gisela Stuart's piece in The Sunday Telegraph but, in the end, I decided I could not be bothered.Monday, March 09, 2009
Terrorism on our doorstep
It is the best part of ten years since the last major terrorist outrage in Northern Ireland, with the Omagh bombing of 1998, which killed 29 people. That was attributed to the Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for the killings.
Responsibility for the murders of two soldiers from the Royal Engineers outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim on Saturday night, as they were taking delivery of pizzas from the local take-away – and the serious injury of the delivery men – is claimed by the same group, thought to be from the "South Antrim unit".
That there has been an outrage comes as no surprise. Over six months or more, the "violence thermostat" has been turned up. And only recently did the media run the story that Sir Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, was acknowledging that he was using surveillance specialists from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, soldiers who covertly track Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In fact, Special Forces have never ceased operations in Northern Ireland, despite the formal end of "Operation Banner" two years ago. But then neither have the IRA groups ever disbanded. Instead, they have concentrated on developing the organised crime component of their activities.
These have involved such enterprises as so-called "tiger kidnappings", where they stalk and hold a bank employee to facilitate a robbery, alcohol and tobacco smuggling, "fuel laundering", where the dye is removed fron agricultural "red diesel" to allow it to be sold at full price, financial fraud, money laundering and straightforward protection rackets.
The "dirty war" of the Troubles simply became the "dirty peace", with the players more or less tolerated as long as they were no longer killing and bombing in the streets.
That this was never going to be stable was not hard to predict. Even – or especially – in Iraq, there was a clear link between oil smuggling, arms dealing and terrorism, these activities so often being inter-related. Terrorism requires fuding, and crime is the obvious source.
Furthermore, something violent has been expected. Recently, the threat level has been raised to "severe", indicating that an attack is highly likely, one short of the top level "critical", where an attack is expected imminently. This came after intelligence suggested dissident republicans were planning a "spectacular". Despite that, though, not all military bases in Northern Ireland had been placed on high alert.
There are some useful observations that can be made here. Having read dozens of official reports on the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from terrorist action, it is remarkable how often one sees claims by senior officers that there was "no intelligence" suggesting an immediate threat, or that so-and-so area was "low risk".
There seems, sometimes, to be a fundamental failure to understand the mind of the terrorist. By definition, they will invariably probe for weaknesses, looking for soft targets, hitting where they are least expected. That is the MO of a terrorist ... they do not confront the "hard" targets. Therefore, an area which is not expected to be targeted is most likely to be the area that is hit.
Secondly, all the reports indicate that the "pizza run" was a regular routine. With a "severe" threat level in place, it has to be said that this was sloppy. At this threat level, all routines should have been reconsidered – and changed. Routines are the friends of terrorists.
Thirdly, the terrorists first used automatic fire to down the two soldiers and then calmly walked from their car to deliver the fatal shots as they lay on the ground – the so-called "double-tap".
We read a number of reports that the civilian security guards who were guarding the camp failed to respond to the shooting and were inactive when the terrorist executed the second part of the "double tap". Likely, they were shocked into immobility.
This is an effect seen commonly on the battlefield. There are numerous reports of British troops, the first time they experience a "contact", who are mesmerised by the shooting. They quite forget to use their own weapons and fire back ... and these are highly trained soldiers.
The same effect is seen when soldiers use their weapons and actually hit their targets. Some are so stunned by the experience that they then cease fire (others, in the heat of action go "red mist" and win medals) - only the exceptionally well-trained retain control.
That these terrorists not only fired - drive-bys are common fare in insurgency warfare - but actually got out of their car (this is highly significant as it is their own personal security zone) to deliver the double-tap suggests exceptional coolness and control - and premeditation. The odds are these are experience killers - they have done this before. If they have not, they have been rigorously drilled by those who have.
Now the "hard men" are back in town – although they never left. That they are now shooting down soldiers again, in cold blood, is a worrying development. Public sentiment has changed in Northern Ireland, but the peace is only skin deep. This weekend's attack is not an isolated event, but it is a serious escalation. Whether we are an the verge of another wave of violence is anyone's guess. No one is prepared to predict that we have seen the last of the killing.
If the police will once again become frequent targets, and should dissident republicans attack loyalists, then there is a very real danger of a re-emergence of tit-for-tat killings, and more mayhem. But, in case you need reminding – this is Ulster. Nothing is ever quite what it seems, and nothing is ever predictable.
COMMENT THREADSunday, March 08, 2009
No surrender!
Writing under the headline, "The EU will have to surrender to survive," she tells us that the EU is in danger of being crushed by the current economic and democratic crises unless Brussels starts to give power back to the member states. This defies a simple rule, confirmed again and again in history. Power is never given … it is always taken.
Gisela Stuart is, of course, an MP. As such, she with her colleagues is in a position to do just that – just as she and her colleagues continue to allow their powers (which they exercise on our behalf) to be eroded. It would have been much more impressive, therefore, if she had written: "We must take back power from Brussels".
If expecting Brussels to return its powers is the best Gisela can do, then no wonder we are in trouble.
COMMENT THREADA concerted line
It may be the case that "spin" in its modern form was invented by New Labour, but it is a technique which the military have adopted with gusto – presumably for the same reason – to make up for its shortcomings elsewhere.
Thus, in the wake ofLieutenant-General John Cooper, we now have Major General Andy Salmon, coming up with the view that, "the servicemen and women who had been killed in Iraq since 2003 did not die in vain."
This is so similar in expression, tone and content to Cooper’s pronouncement that it cannot be a coincidence. This is clearly a concerted line that the military "brass" has agreed to adopt, to draw attention away from their collective failure to hold the line in southern Iraq.
And still Salmon is repeating the same drivel that he came up with in early February, claiming that the provincial elections were a "litmus test" for the Iraqi army, which it had passed. It was thus the right time for the British to pull-out because the military task had been achieved. "We have created a secure and stable environment for social and political development to take place."
While, as we have said before, there were good reasons for the failure, and no blame can be attached to the service personnel on the ground who served their masters and were in harm’s way. But it ill-behoves the likes of Cooper and now Salmon to pretend that the campaign was anything other than what it was. The claim that, "We have created a secure and stable environment…" is manifestly untrue.
That Salmon is clearly spouting the concerted "line", however, seems to have been missed by Sean Rayment, who wrote The Sunday Telegraph story. Apparently not having seen the report in The Times on 16 February, he writes: "He [Salmon] is understood to be the first British officer to publicly state that war was worth the sacrificing the lives of British troops."
At least Salmon has the decency to say that it was always difficult to judge whether any military operation was worth the sacrifice of soldiers' lives, acknowledging that, "different soldiers will give you different answers, depending on their experiences."
But it now seems that if you are in the high command, "different answers" is no longer a luxury you can afford. Whatever the question, the answer will always be the same. But the only people the military are deceiving are themselves.
COMMENT THREADBrainwashed
This is a current GCSE question (click to enlarge), from the physics paper. You don't pass unless you are a believer. If you don't believe, of course, you are mentally deranged.
The evil of the examination paper is, unfortunately, all too obvious. How can a child possibly dissent when their future career prospects are intimately bound up in accepting the propaganda?
And for the "sulfur" nonsense, you can blame these people, who seem to think they have the God-given right to change the English language
Monday, 9 March 2009
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