A Tangled Web

A Measure of Glee with the IMC

 

Northern Ireland's Independent Monitoring Commission has published its second report.  Whereas the last report focused primarily on the weapons decommissioned by murdering terrorists (bugger all!), this report centres on the reduction in troop numbers by HM Armed Forces presently stationed in the province.

 

I did not favour the establishment of the IMC because it implies some sort of moral equivalence between the legal defence forces of the State, and unlawful Mafioso militias.   However, I was pleasantly surprised with the tone of its first submission, and I find little to criticise this time around.  Army personnel levels may be 'three times the envisaged level for peace time activities', but the Commission is careful to avoid any reference to a peaceful Northern Ireland (which certainly does not exist at the moment). 

 

Instead, the province labours under a corrupted veneer of a false peace whereby loyalist and republican thugs can effectively police and terrorise their own communities.  People continue to be murdered, exiled and intimidated from many, many areas of Ulster; paramilitaries continue to rule their fiefdoms with all the power and precision of seasoned fascists; and Ulster's nationalist minority is now so extreme and radicalised, it sees nothing contradictory in, on the one hand, pretending to be a victimised and, on the other, voting en masse for the cheerleaders of terrorist filth.

 

When the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries decide to decommission, disband and actively contemplate mass suicide is the time to reduce the Army's presence to the levels stipulated.  Until then, the whinging of cretins like Alex Maskey and David Ervine should be treated with the contempt they deserve.