difference between sinn fein and republican sinn fein?

[Seamus]

I think in the 1950s it that such a tactic might just possibly have worked. It's interesting that excessive force wasn't used to repulse the Border Campaign - and I may well be corrected - I don't think the IRA engaged directly with British Army units (of which there were very few inside the 6 counties at the time). But by the 1960s I think it was implausible, with the UK solidly locked into the US/UK/NATO security structures. More to the point, and leading on from there, in the context of the EEC/EU the idea that such a defined guerilla operation would be permitted doesn't strike me as credible.

I've mentioned it before, how some proposed open conflict with larger than flying column units at the end of the 1980s but the assessment within PIRA was that they would be annihilated. In a way low level insurgency of the type which typified the conflict was probably the best any group could do in the context of maintaining their operational viability while still flying the flag, so to speak. So, you get short-warning bombings, snipings, some assassinations and the occasional 'spectacular', and it's clearly bloody difficult to do even that...as the comparable lack of success of the INLA demonstrates. Indeed were I a dissident Republican I'd take a long hard look at them as a guide to just how hard it is to establish and maintain an armed profile. They had the benefit of taking the bulk of the Officials weapons and activists in the 6 counties, at a time when that still meant something (after all the Officials ceasefire was barely two years or so old) and yet they were unable to really mount the sort of sustained operations their larger rival was capable of. Why so? Because they lacked the same level of support in the community, lacked the links to suppliers, lacked expertise depending as time went on on more and more young and relatively unskilled members whose enthusiasm was matched only by their ignorance. And as time progressed further they fell apart into mutually suspicious and conflicting factions...

Doesn't this sound just a tad familiar?

The problem was that the provisionals hadnt nearly enough military people involved in the organisation like for every jim lynagh,seamus mcilwaine or michael mcverry you had there was maybe twenty gerry adams's,tom hartley's etc, meaning politicos like the type mentioned before were put in charge of areas they shouldnt have had in my view.

Like for instance when seamus mcilwaine was killed operations in fermanagh almost grounded to a halt and i would say in my opinion that if he had of survived we could have avoided the enniskillen disaster maybe im wrong.

Tom barry who always defended the right to armed struggle against the british state and never indulged with hypocrisy like (the old ira fought a glorious honourable war and republicans in the north didnt) maintained that the 30's were the best time to fight for the north,but i suppose its pointless talking about missed opportuinities.

Another problem that we face is that there is too many scumbags,undesireables,hoods,druggies and wannabe hardmen wanting to get involved and they are far from being politically astute.
I will always support the armed struggle but as you say and id agree with you there is a need for anti gfa republicans to look at ourselves and think long about whats the best way forward because a phoney campaign will only end up with volunteers in prison.

I agree with that. Of course it'd have been better if there never was a split, but we need to remember that we are all on the same road. If a road proves the wrong one, well then its the wrong one. But arguments about whos the biggest republican does nothing for anyone.

Adams and his people wanted a split so that they could further their policies of surrender unheded
It probably would have been better for the rsf people to stay within the provos to grow stronger in the face of the surrender process and oust adams and prevent whats happening now but thats how it goes.

The road the provisionals are on in seriously undermining the republican position and it was over forty years since fianna fail betrayal that republicans recovered.

[Seánod]

Pogo, couldn't be arsed doing your research as regards the Mi5 budget, but the Times Political Editor Michael Evans covered this story on May 22 of this year. It can be read on the 32CSM forum.

Remarkably, Merle and yourself would appear to be right on this one.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 35,00.html

So is it the actions of MI5 that is preventing dissident Republicans from making an impact, or are the Brits wasting time and money on imaginary threats :

They probably intend to strengthen M15 for two reasons. Firstly, they definitely will be focussing on anti-GFA republican groups. Small or not, the British are never complacent about things like this.

Secondly, they might be preparing to shift some of the more politically oppressive powers of the PSNI away in the direction of M15 to entice Sinn Féin onto the Policing Boards.

[Seamus]

Is there any oath of allegiance to the crown in the new assembly?

Irrelvent personally speaking and as well as that sympathic labour mp's tried to get rid of the oath or tailor it to allow your party in to westminster but adams and co said it had nothing to do with an oath but that britain claims part of ireland i.e westminster and stormont is equally partitionist.

Have the British not accepted that when the people of the 6 counties vote for unity, they will leave?

I dont trust the brits an inch to deliver and i dont believe that a 6 county vote for unity would win,even in a thousand years.

Is there not also a nationalist veto, in that Unionism can no longer govern unilaterally?

Your criticisms seem predicated on a belief that Stormont is the same as it always was, when in reality it is different. To be fair, I think part of the difference in mindset has to do with the fact that you can remember the old Stormont, whereas I can't. Therefore when you hear the term Stormont, you think of the old days unlike me. I see Stormont as nothing other than a place where the people of the 6 counties can have local instead of direct rule representation. That said, I have my own take on the usefulness of the executive and you can see that via the link in the 'Why have SF flat-lined?' thread.

That is the epitomy of the difference between your party and anti gfa republicans.

Republicans from the first day of partition had to expose the 6 counties for what it was,a plastic dirty state that went against the wishes of the majority of people who voted for independence in 1918.
We had to make the state unstable,ungovernable, to show that this failed state wouldnt work regardless of efforts of collaborators,loyalists,brits and the freestaters.

Stormont is the centre of all this and what you people dont understand or dont care is that by taking part in stormont your making the northern state stable,governable and acceptable to people you represent which means that while the north is sucessfully governed,who'll want to rock the boat or spoil it with talks over an united ireland.

Ill put it this way if someone were to sit and take your favourite chair in your sitting room,obviously you'd ask them to move, naturally they would refuse but you wouldnt hand them a few cushions and the remote control in the hope that they get up now would you?

id prefer local government without british or loyalist involvement and this has to be removed first before any sort of governing body is set up acceptable to republicans.

[MartinP]

Stormont is the centre of all this and what you people dont understand or dont care is that by taking part in stormont your making the northern state stable,governable and acceptable to people you represent which means that while the north is sucessfully governed,who'll want to rock the boat or spoil it with talks over an united ireland.

Well said. I've long been of the same opinion. I can't understand what the proportedly pro-independence parties involved in the current process in the six counties intend to do on the far side of making Stormont and the GFA (and by extension the 6 county state) a success. The idea of making the state stable, governable, etc. (something it never was in its 85 years of existence), then thinking that somehow people within that state will be willing to risk it all and opt for a united and independent Ireland just doesn't add up.