Northern Ireland News

I don't offer mention Northern Ireland on this blog but today I thought I'd have a bit of a change and do a quick round up of the headlines here today.

First of all is the report of a man being shot as he arrived at work in the Sandy Row area of Belfast. This is a staunch Loyalist area and a bit of a rough area of the city, though it's not far at all from the more sedate Queen's University, where I studied. It seems that his death is linked to a feud between two rival Loyalist groups, the UVF and LVF. Obviously a power struggle between what are essentially criminal gangs now.

Next we have Blair defending his decision to not only dismantle border watchtowers (set up to spot IRA and other terrorists sneaking across the border to carry out attacks- the usual MO was to launch an attack and then slip across the border where the military and RUC could not follow) but also three battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment. The battalions to be disbanded are what's known as "home battalions"- that is, they are tasked to serve in Northern Ireland only. The "overseas" battalions of the RIR also serve in-country but they also go on overseas postings- Sierra Leone and Iraq for example.

Blair's reasoning for the disbandment is the IRA statment that they are giving up violence. Of course, he fails to take into account the fact that the IRA broke their ceasefire years ago by bombing London. He also seems to be ignoring the fact that the IRA still has its weapons and explosives and was, as soon as the beginning of the year, still recruiting and training terrorists. The prudent move would be to keep the security measures in place until the IRA actually disarmed (police stations here are heavily fortified against bomb attacks too- the PSNI is spending something like £1.5 million "softening" these security features- in other words, removing them).

No mention of course of the "dissident" Nationalist groups (for example, Real IRA), like those responsible for the Omagh bomb- have they laid down their arms? Blair makes no mention of the threat they pose. Nor does he consider the idea that it might be useful to keep the troops and gradually phase them into overseas units, to supplement the already overstretched Britsh forces. The RIR have huge experience in operating in urban areas and to lose three battalions of such skilled soldiers seems absurdly ridiculous at this time.

This is an example of the sort of thing that happens so frequently in this country that the government has had to take out TV ads to highlight the problem. A fake call went in about a fire and when the police and fire engines turned up they were attacked by stone throwing thugs. Idiocy in action.