I thought he made the "cake and eating it" point very well pete.

Who is better informed the Taoiseach with all his access to inteligence and security sources...(an argument deployed ad nasueam by anti-republicans when he pointed the finger at the RA after the Northern bank heist) or Ed Moloney?
When the anti-republican posters hear Bertie saying something they like -he is the fount of all knowledge (access to British security briefings etc etc)...but when he says something that the anti-republicans do not like the sound of even countenancing the possibility of, namely the possibility that the RA and SF may be about to "divorce", then all of a sudden he is deemed to be naive and ill-informed.
You can not have it both ways...er but anti-republicans do because all they are interested in is having your own interpretation of the nature of the relationship between SF and the RA confirmed, and nothing will shift this, because it is central to their view of the issues.

Don't Moloney and the govt share the same view of that relationship?

No, we want rid of private armies! All of them.

And their fellow-travellers will have no one to negotiate with unless they go away.

That is what is has come down to.

I thought Bertie was just being Bertie.

Gerry Adams suggested it back in the 1990-91 period, before the ceasefires. He was frustrated at IRA operations that killed civilians and saw divorce as a way of being able to criticise the IRA in public. His suggestion had a twist. Sinn Féin activists who sat on the IRA's Army Council should be allowed to stay on, albeit secretly.

Secretly? As opposed to what? Isn't membership of the Army Council always supposed to be a secret?

I know this might seem a stupid question but, leaving Northern Ireland aside, is there a principle involved in objecting to private armies. (I am not sure myself so I can’t argue strongly with any position). When the US gained its independence from Britain--(through terrorism?) the original drafters of the US constitution felt strongly that the power of the state should be balanced by other sources of military power. They felt strongly enough that they framed the second amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Of coarse the power elite in any nation state would condemn private armies, however even if they presented the argument in moral terms I would always believe they were motivated by self interest.

I have heard the argument that the nation state should have a monopoly on the use of violence but this argument is unsatisfying. I could argue with examples from Nor Iron but I would like to hear arguments that were more general.

Have any of you political gurus out there wrestled with this issue? Or am I the only one?

Heck,

My rusty recollection of history tells me that standing armies were not the norm in the 18th century. My interptretation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution is that, in the absence of a standing mercenary army, a citizens' army or militia should be encouraged by promoting weapons possession and usage. Again, my recollection of American history says that every time a "militia" arose against the Federal government it was put down by the Army of the Republic.

Maybe someone else can add their knowledge of citizen armies in Switzerland and Israel.

heck

I can only recommend the recent words of the noted biographer Joseph J. Ellis, ostensibly on a biography of Thomas Paine, although arguably the words relate to all historical political analogies -

What a reincarnated Paine would say about our altered political and intellectual landscape is impossible to know. Kaye hears his voice more clearly and unambiguously than I do, a clarity of conviction that I envy. My more muddled position is that bringing Paine's words and ideas into our world is like trying to plant cut flowers.