The world according to one-eyed men

Those jolly japesters in Republican Sinn Fein (the ones who split in 1986 when Gerry and the boys in the Provos went soft by deciding to run in Brit elections) aren't happy at all.

Apparently the PSNI (or 'British Colonial Police' as they are known within RSF circles) have had the audacity to drive around in the North, talking to the locals!

According to a press release from the three men and a dog in RSF, this "use of vans" is "putting lives at risk" because they are "being used in a sinister attempt to build relations with local people."

Why is such relationship-building so sinister, pray tell? Because it "thereby increases British intelligence capacity and capabilities in Ireland," of course.

They're beyond satire. They really are.

The UDA

The Ulster Defence Association is a loyalist terror group, founded in 1972 at the height of the Troubles.

In the Eighties, the UDA and their various proxy names (UFF etc) killed only two Republican paramilitaries, but over 100 innocent Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Many of these killings were done in collusion with the RUC and the UDR, the official, British government-sponsored agents of justice in Northern Ireland at the time.

The UDA is heavily armed, and engages in internal feuding as well as internecine feuding with the UVF, largely in turf wars relating to the profits of drug dealing and racketeering in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The UDA is a proscribed organisation, of which membership is a criminal offence. Despite a promise in 2005, years after the IRA disarmed, to 'consider their position', the most recent Independent Monitoring Commission report highlights that the UDA continues to be involved in organised crime, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, extortion, money laundering and robbery.

So can anyone please explain why it is that UDA leader Jackie McDonald can be seen shaking the hand of Hugh Orde, chief cop in Northern Ireland, yesterday without feeling the cool clink of cuffs around his wrists?

Can anyone explain why it is that the UDA - a criminal organisation that refuses to ceasefire or disarm - is set to receive £1.2 million pounds from the British government, despite openly refusing to even consider handing in their weapons?

The pictures of McDonald grasping the hand of the leading policeman of the land is reminiscent for many people of recent times when innocent Catholics were murdered by the UDA with the RUC's blessing.

It rubs salt in their open wounds when they see police and unionists attempt to lie about those crimes, and seek to pour scorn on Nuala O'Loan's report into collusion.

But the sight of paramilitary leaders, whose followers are known to be active criminals and known to be armed to the teeth, not only walking the streets freely but shaking hands with our 'reformed' police force leader and then actually receiving millions of taxpayer pounds to do so makes me sick.

Oh, did I mention that this particular drug-dealing, Catholic hating, tooled up, bigoted piece of filth Jackie McDonald is also great and old pals with our own gullible and unelected president, La McAleese too?

Collusion - the proof

Hot on the heels of the recent independent international panel report into 76 deaths in the 1970s, now we have Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman report into collusion.

Thank you, Nuala O'Loan for your brave and comprehensive report into the biggest scandal of the entire 'Troubles' period.

It is now incontrovertible that the state's police and security services routinely colluded with Loyalist gunmen in order to bring about the murder of Catholic citizens of Northern Ireland.

No doubt the Paisleyites will be suddenly silenced, as they always are when evidence of the wrongdoings committed against the Catholic community of the six counties are highlighted.

But with the DUP's eternal ranting about murderers and terrorism, with the UUP's continuing demands for Nationalists to ally themselves to and offer respect for the organs of state control, surely now is the time for both of those parties to stand up and loudly state that they condemn utterly the activities which saw those state organs take part in the murder of innocent citizens?

Well, Ian? Well, Reg? A single condemnation will do. Though of course, it would be even better if you could convince those members of your electorate who refused to talk to Nuala O'Loan, likely due to their own guilt, to come forward and reveal the full extent of their complicity with Loyalist death squads.

A few arrests wouldn't go amiss either. There are former RUC officers who, we now know from two reports, were involved in plotting the killing of innocent civilians, yet they live in comfortable retirement paid for by the taxpayer out of their extensive pensions.

They could be released after a token sentence under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement if necessary.

But if the Unionist parties really want to convince anyone that they really do stand by justice and against terrorism, now is the time for them to step up to the plate and do so, unequivocally.

Bertie Ahern, a man usually known for saying nothing in a thousand words, has been refreshingly clear in his response to this report. I await the response of Tony Blair with interest. But not as much interest as I await Paisley's and Empey's responses.

Update: Tony Blair didn't see fit to comment himself, instead leaving it up to an unnamed mouthpiece to make the following statement:

"This is a deeply disturbing report about events which were totally wrong and which should never have happened. The fact that they did is a matter for profound regret, and the prime minister shares that regret. But this is also a report about the past, and what is important now is that, under the new structures introduced along with the formation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, these events could not happen now."

Hugh Orde and Peter Hain appear to be towing the same line of 'it couldn't happen now.' Surely the point is that it happened THEN? Despite repeated denials from all the same sources now wringing their hands and seeking solace in recent change, these death occurred in the Nineties, some less than a decade ago.

I do very much welcome Hain's statement that he wants to see those involved arrested though:

"There are all sorts of opportunities for prosecutions to follow," said the direct rule Secretary of State. "The fact that some retired police officers obstructed the investigation and refused to cooperate with the police ombudsman is very serious in itself."

Well, feel free to start with the group of former Special Branch officers quoted in The Guardian as saying they had "nothing to be ashamed of', Peter.

Idiots rule

Like the song goes, idiots rule. But for them to rule, then a large proportion of the rest of us have to follow. Which makes us the even bigger idiots. How does this work? Let's examine a few current examples:

1. China expects to be short by about 30 million marriageable women by 2020. This one's not rocket science. They couldn't have seen it coming?

Okay, so first the Government tells you to stop breeding under pain of death and prescribes stringent laws punishing people for having more than one child. What to do? Overthrow your mad-as-a-brush government is what.

Don't listen to the idiots - if you do, you end up killing your girl children and your sole son will have no one to marry when he grows up, which he will have to do entirely surrounded by other lads, which will probably make him gay.

2. A thousand Poles have applied to join the PSNI. Again, when you throw the doors open for half of Eastern Europe to come in, sooner or later those people are going to want the nice public sector sinecure jobs instead of the nasty meat-packing ones. This one could have been predicted.

But again, idiots rule. Why? Well, primarily because such is the endemic xenophobia in Northern Ireland that Polish officers could expect plenty of trouble everywhere they go.

Also because there does not appear to be sufficient vetting of the candidates, and because even Poles with police experience back East are unlikely to be suitable due to the fact that up until not very long ago their police were psychos suppressing the people.

Not unlike the PSNI, you say? Fair enough. As you were, gentlemen.

Don't listen to the idiots who reckon you deserve a yellow-pack police service, people. My suggestion? When PC Pawel comes knocking on the door, conduct your conversation in Irish or Ulster-Scots. If he arrests you, appeal to Nuala O'Loan. You'll get off, you'll get millions in compensation and Pawel will be deported.

3. Also, little Albania has shown up the rest of us so-called civilised countries by taking in as refugees those people who, after five years (Happy Birthday, Gitmo!) of incarceration by the US in Guantanamo Bay, have been proved innocent but are unable to return to their homelands for fear of death.

America is sending these people to Albania because, of course, it fears for their safety and is concerned about human rights in their countries of origin, which include Uzbekistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

According to the US State Department's deputy director for War Crimes (yes, they really have such a role in Government, and no, she isn't pursuing George W!), one Sandy Hodgkinson, "The US position is clear."

Tell us what that position is please, Sandy?

"We will not send individuals to places where we believe it is more than likely they will be tortured," she says. So that's nice and clear. Except for one thing: The US sent them to be tortured BEFORE they got to Gitmo, and the entire time they were held against all international law and human rights IN Gitmo.

Among the places, Gitmo incarcerents were sent to be tortured by the CIA are Uzbekistan and Egypt, ironically enough. So why the sudden crisis of conscience when letting them out?

Yes, idiots rule alright. Don't listen to the idiots who tell you they're concerned about torture and human rights while they're simultaneously practising torture and ignoring human rights. Their double-think permits them to rule you despite their being idiots.

Scrap the Gardai and start again

It's time to scrap the Gardai and start again. I was thinking this around the time that the Patton reforms in the North were announced years ago. If there is a police force on this island in desperate need of reform, it's the Gardai, not the PSNI.

Now, that's not to suggest that all is well with the Nips. It's not. But they have moved on from the sectarian nature that the RUC once displayed and are continuing to move in the right direction, in a climate which still makes proper community policing extremely difficult.

It's time, as Mairtin O'Muilleoir has pointed out, for Sinn Fein to endorse the PSNI, so that they can help to achieve the final reforms necessary to make the PSNI truly a police force for all in the North.

But what about the keystone cops of the Republic? This week they finally arrested Joe O'Reilly on charges of murdering his wife Rachel. Now, Joe is currently innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But this development indicates that such a trial is now likely.

Joe himself has previously acknowledged that he was a leading suspect. Newspapers like the Evening Herald all but identified him as the only suspect Gardai were investigating. Yet it has apparently taken over two years and hundreds of thousands of euro spent on investigation to bring Mr O'Reilly to the point of being charged.

This would be the same police force, incidentally, which has been caught fitting up people for non-existent murders in Donegal, planting evidence of bombmaking, and allegedly lying in court in relation to a suspect who was charged with offences relating to the Omagh bombing.

The same force that threatened to go on strike if a reserve force was introduced. The same force who earn spectacular wages and overtime for one of the worst records of serious crime solving in Europe, even after they pretended to solve some of the cases that they hadn't.

I reckon it's time the Gardai were completely overhauled. Let's scrap them and start again.

Incidentally, now that I have the queasy image of the Evening Herald in my head, let's consider a headline from former Murder Squad (that's the disbanded and discredited murder squad) detective Gerry O'Carroll's column, which appears in the Herald each Wednesday.

Commenting on the appearance of radical Islamic speaker Anjem Choudary at Trinity College this week, O'Carroll's article was titled 'Hate-filled rants must be silenced.' This is surely the height of irony, given the bile that he spews weekly.

O'Carroll, as many Herald readers may be unaware, was involved in the Gardai's 'Heavy Gang' in the 1970s, which Amnesty International accused of extracting confessions from suspects using torture. O'Carroll, like others involved, denies the Heavy Gang existed.

He was also the legend who got Joanne Hayes to confess to murder in the 'Kerry Babies' saga, and apparently still maintains that she gave birth to both babies, even though scientific evidence has long since proven otherwise.

O'Carroll has current Evening Herald editor Steven Rea to thank for his elevation from dodgy copper to red-top ranter. Rea, as many people may not recall, was formerly the editor of the Garda Review, so to describe him as having friends in the Garda establishment would be akin to stating that Gary Glitter shows an interest in young ladies.

'Hate-filled rants must be silenced', alright. Let's start by petitioning Mr Rea to remove his discredited pal's column. And then we can move on to dealing with the dodgy cops still practising in the police service.

Two years to bring a single-suspect case to charges? The public deserves better than that.

Bogey at St Andrews

I'm still attempting to digest the latest version of the only deal in town presented at St Andrews yesterday evening.

But even if the DUP and Sinn Fein sign up to it, my first impressions leave me with that sinking feeling that we're into yet another round of proposal-vote-assembly-brinksmanship-collapse with no real change of benefit to the people of Northern Ireland.

The text includes a number of bogies, not the least of which is this little gem:

"The great majority of national security agents will be run by the PSNI, under the strategic direction of the Service, mirroring the arrangements the Service has with the police in GB.
This makes sense in NI in particular because of the interface between serious crime and national security; the police also have the advantage of local knowledge.
The Security Service will continue to run directly a small number of agents who are authorised to obtain information in the interests of national security as distinct from countering criminality, where the circumstances make that appropriate."

So we'll still have MI5 and Special Branch running agents, shall we? Lovely. Sadly, the document makes no mention of whether they'll be running entire paramilitary outfits, authorising murders, infiltrating political parties or simply looking for Al-Qaeda in Magherafelt.

But hey, we'll get a freeze on the current stratospheric house rates and a victims' commissioner, so that's all right then.

No Blow Area

The PSNI made the biggest ever drugs bust in Northern Ireland yesterday when they cracked open a lorry in a Newtownards warehouse and found 3.5 tons of cannabis.

This news is likely to be greeted with dismay among the stoners of the island, which like Britain has been suffering a 'drought' for some months, ever since the UDA decided to cease its dealing operations.

In fact, one local paper recently splashed the headline 'No Blow Area' on their front page while reporting the shortage of cannabis locally and throughout the two islands.

Reports of the bust, in which two men in their thirties were arrested, reveal that the police feared that the dope would be distributed quickly throughout the whole island, and possibly to Britain too, such was its scale.

But what those reports do not indicate is why people want to smoke cannabis despite health risks and illegality, nor why this current drought has come about.

There are a number of interesting factors at play here. The first is Loyalist paramilitary involvement in drug dealing. The recent purging of the UDA's Shoukri brothers from North Belfast, curiously coincided with the onset of this drug drought.

Yet PC Plod from the PSNI refused to be drawn on whether paramilitaries were involved in this particular consignment at today's press conference, or on speculation that the drought itself was caused by the UDA moving out of the drugs business.

To get cannabis into an island like Ireland, you need to export it from somewhere (usually Spain or Holland) and have guys on the ground to distribute it when it arrives. Little comment has been passed on the demise of a series of Dublin criminals in Spain and Holland in recent months. It appears likely that their removal from the scene has drastically reduced the availability of drugs to the Irish market.

So at one stage, we had Dubs in the Costas shipping dope to Egyptian UDA men in the North. And now? Well, judging by Newtownards, someone still wants to import a lot of cannabis to the well established market in Ireland. But who?

Either the UDA, or another paramilitary grouping, have decided to cash in on the drought, or else we have a new paradigm for drug dealing in the North, where entrepreneurial gangsters move in on the trade with violent consequences, such as the Westies once were in Dublin before their untimely demise in Spain.

In which case, how long before other gangs of young, gun-toting psychos decide to fill the gap left behind by the paramilitaries in the North? Having put the Troubles in the past for now, is Northern Ireland set for a Dublin-style wave of gangland activity?

The final point is the most obvious of all. A lot of people clearly want to smoke cannabis and are even prepared to break the law to do so. Why? Because they do not respect that law.

There is already plenty of debate elsewhere about the prohibition of cannabis, its rights and wrongs, and of the pros and cons of cannabis from a health perspective. But it would seem to me that one way to eradicate the possibility of a Belfast gangland developing, never mind the financial benefit, is to legalise the cannabis market now.