Conghaileach
16th May 2003, 18:55
Belfast Telegraph
15 May 2003
Differences of opinion on who is allowed to murder whom
By Eamonn McCann
EVERYBODY is against murder as a general rule, but almost everybody allows for exceptions. It's in relation to the exceptions that our differences emerge.
It hasn't only been loyalist politicians and far-right commentators across the water who have suggested in the last few days that even if every horrendous allegation against the elusive Stakeknife were proven true, that he's a torturer and a serial murderer who did his torturing and killing under false colours, the agent and his handlers have nothing to be embarrassed about.
It has been argued, even in newspapers as respectable as this one, that the result of the operation was to undermine the Provos and thus speed their abandonment of the "armed struggle" and the threat it posed to the authority of the State.
If the State's forces hadn't got as deep down and dirty as the paramilitaries, the measure of peace we now live in, and the return of a semblance of stability under constitutional law, would not have been attained.
This, in fact, is the view of the State itself.
Full Story (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/story.jsp?story=406449)
15 May 2003
Differences of opinion on who is allowed to murder whom
By Eamonn McCann
EVERYBODY is against murder as a general rule, but almost everybody allows for exceptions. It's in relation to the exceptions that our differences emerge.
It hasn't only been loyalist politicians and far-right commentators across the water who have suggested in the last few days that even if every horrendous allegation against the elusive Stakeknife were proven true, that he's a torturer and a serial murderer who did his torturing and killing under false colours, the agent and his handlers have nothing to be embarrassed about.
It has been argued, even in newspapers as respectable as this one, that the result of the operation was to undermine the Provos and thus speed their abandonment of the "armed struggle" and the threat it posed to the authority of the State.
If the State's forces hadn't got as deep down and dirty as the paramilitaries, the measure of peace we now live in, and the return of a semblance of stability under constitutional law, would not have been attained.
This, in fact, is the view of the State itself.
Full Story (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/story.jsp?story=406449)