Thursday, February 02, 2006
Thursday Thoughts: DUP triviality
The big story in Ireland right now is the IMC report which hasn't produced the results that many of us had hoped for.Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern has said the IRA have made significant progress in switching off its paramilitary machine and that the IMC report contained enough to re-start talks on the resumption of powersharing.
However the DUP leader Ian Paisley has taken a very different line.
"In terms of rioting, intelligence gathering, assaults, exiling and large scale crime, Sinn Fein/IRA has not turned its back on violence and criminality but is instead as involved in illegality as it has ever been," he said.
"This report dispels the nonsense suggested by government that ongoing IRA terror and criminality are the deeds of individuals acting without the say so of the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership."
I think we need to see through Paisley's spin, bluster and bullshit. Here's the reality from the IMC's report:
- One murder victim, UDA ex-brigadier Jim Gray. The murder was attributed to the UDA.
- 22 reported shooting victims. ALL were attributed to loyalists.
- 9 assaults, 8 of which were attributed to loyalists with the other assault attributed to DISSIDENT republicans. NONE were attributed to the Provisional IRA.
The result? We're told that power-sharing cannot be restored because of the threat posed by the Provisional IRA!
Does this make any sense? Of course not! That's typical though isn't it?
I agree with Dermot Ahern. There's enough in the report to suggest that power-sharing should be restored.
Let's not buy into Paisley and his spin. The man doesn't want progress.
# posted by United Irelander @ 12:44 AM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
