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When's A Republican Not A Republican?
In yesterday's post on the terrorist attack on a charity fundraising festival I, very deliberately, did not use the term 'dissident' at all. The report linked to from the story lays the blame with "dissident republicans" but I feel this is a very deliberate attempt to absolve the republican leadership of responsibility for these attacks.
The attacks may not have been carried out by Gerry's and Martin's provies, but they were carried out by men and women with almost identical political views: ie not only that a united and independent Ireland is their preferred constitutional settlement for these islands, but that they are entitled to kill and murder innocent people in pursuit of that goal.
I find it ironic and hypocritical in the extreme that on one hand Gerry and his Sinn Fein buddies refer to "Unionist Death Squads" and "Unionist Terrorists" when they really mean loyalists, in a blatant effort to tar constitutional unionism with the albatross of violent thugs, and at the same time we're fed lines about 'dissident' republicans in an effort to put clear distance between the republican leadership and their out of control fanatical terrorist activists. Let me be very clear that this is an attempt to let Sinn Fein off the hook for republican violence, while at the same time they try to blame loyalist violence on unionist politicians. If this isn't the most blatant of unjustifiable double-standards, I don't know what is.
Follow up:
It's my view that Paisley has been responsible for loyalist violence in the past, particularly when he 'warned' RUC officers not to come crying to him if their homes were attacked after they removed him from a rally in 1986. That said, while Paisley may have been responsible for loyalist violence, Sinn Fein continue to regularly excuse and justify it. As long as they continue to do that, they give republicans a blank cheque for mayhem.
When Gerry and Martin come out and apologise or admit that the armed struggle was a ghastly and costly mistake then we can talk about dissidents, but for now, the only difference between those who carried out the attacks in Omagh in 1998 or Hillsborough yesterday and Sinn Fein's sanitised, wholesome provisional IRA is one of degrees and of timing. I for one won't be doing the public relations work of the IRA / Sinn Fein for them by letting them off the hook every time someone puts the word "dissident" or "continuity" or "real" in front of a group who choose to assault our freedom.
Enough of the 'dissident' crap. Call a spade a spade and call a fanatical republican murderer a fanatical republican murderer.