Following on from my earlier post, 'Shankill Bomber Re-Jailing "Reprehensible"' on Tuesday, I'd like to draw attention to some of the writings of Newton Emerson, which were drawn to my attention by a post at Slugger O'Toole.

In his piece in the Irish News he discusses the apparent Sinn Fein "Blame Everything on Securocrats" policy. Ignoring the lack of imagination shown by simply tagging the "ocrats" on to someone's job title, he argues that the excuse is wearing a bit thin, especially when trotted out by the IRA-Sinn Fein leadership over the re-arrest of convicted IRA multiple murderer, Sean Kelly.

Apparently, Securocrats (TM) and Unionists want to 'undermine the peace process'. Sinn Fein should know better than anyone that the people who will benefit most from peace will be Unionists and the British government. Unionists get their country up and running again, with a chance to prove that it can work and the British government can get back to getting down and dirty and sorting out schools and hospitals!

To Gerry Kelly's claim that "He [Sean Kelly] has played an invaluable and positive role in keeping the situation calm at interfaces in north Belfast,"
Emerson points out, in a stunning display of the most common sense, "There's nothing quite like a sectarian mass murderer running around to really take the sting out of a riot."

Follow up:

To Sinn Fein accusations that a letter stating the PSNI had no reason to believe Sean Kelly was involved in street disturbances, again Newt points out the most obvious of facts that Sinn Fein should be embarrassed not to have considered. Since the reason given for Kelly's arrest was that he has "become re-involved in terrorism and is a danger to others," rather than proving the arrest was politically motivated, the police obviously agree that "Sean Kelly's alleged re-involvement in terrorism is of a more serious nature than chucking bricks across the Crumlin Road".

I'll leave you with the closing couple of paragraphs from Emerson's piece:

Everything the authorities have done and said to date is entirely consistent and in line with the regulations governing Sean Kelly's licence, the terms of which are set out in an internationally-binding agreement which Sinn Féin has signed.

Even assuming entirely self-centred motivations in others, none of the accusations advanced by republicans add up. Five years after the prisoner release programme, one of those 474 prisoners has an interview with his parole board.

What's so unjust, reprehensible or even surprising about that?