and what are they going to carry out such a punishment with...? Big sticks?

I think the News Letter is in need of name change: The Straw Clutchers Chronicle has a nice ring.

The Newsletter is fast becoming the daily equivalent of the Sunday World with its spurious innuendo relating to Big Gerry, SF and anyone else it views as selling Ulster down the river.
Anyone know if its hardline stance is affecting its publication figures?

Hey, wait a minute. What is this ... a Republican back scratching club? You all come in here to agree with each other?

Ulster is a democracy. The Newsletter can print whatever it wants without IRA thugs threatening a journalist. Aren't they busy enough in their own communities knee capping and knifing their own dissenters?

I think the nationalist Sinn Fein mentality was perfectly exemplified after local numbskulls in the Short Strand butchered McCartney and left him to bleed like a slaughtered pig. What was it these aspiring democrats came up with? Something along the lines of "we'll kill them for ye ... bullet in the head Provo style ... no fuckin' problem".

There is a sub-human, illiterate element in nationalist circles and this attempt to intimidate a journalist is just one of many, many examples of Republican ape tactics.

They could probably carry out the punishment with one of the 300 untraceable guns they been allowed to keep and then blame it on loyalist.

There is a sub-human, illiterate element in nationalist circles and this attempt to intimidate a journalist is just one of many, many examples of Republican ape tactics. - alex_cr0wley

Indeed many Republicans are untermensch and perhaps steps need to be taken to protect the purity of the Ulster people.

I can walk!

"Anyone know if its hardline stance is affecting its publication figures?"

Yes, the readership has gone up by a few percent, according to the latest ABC figures (noted on Slugger). This was quite an achievement, considering that over the same period the Belfast Telegraph brought out its morning edition (in tabloid format).

Not sure why the NL is being criticised for covering this story.

Slug

The NL is being criticised for this because it goes against what RM are trying to portray to the Media/Governments/America.

Well I suppose intimidating journalists is all they have left ... poor things.

IRA organization was compromised, the authorities had them by the short and curlies. Their organization was like swiss cheese and the Provos were shooting young volunteers on the smallest suspicions.

Now Adams is declaring a victory of sorts. For whom or for what? Did I miss something?

Thousands dead, districts gutted, fear still stalking the land and what have these clowns achieved in terms of their stated agenda? Very little. Oh wait ... Gerry has a cushy job and wee Marty will get his desk job too. So there's a big win.

In terms of all their other ambitions ... uhhh ... Brits are still in Ulster, the O.O. is still marching, no united Ireland in sight, jacks still flying and the Queen is still on her throne.

No doubt these jumped little scumbags who have ruined the province and turned life into a living hell for people, need to start on a journalist ... since they have failed at everything else.

That would be "jumped up"

That would be "jumped up"

None of these organisations like light being shone on them.They will allways react in this manner.If they had their way they would steal,kill or kidnap at will with out a care in the world.

Oh yeah they do that allready.

I'm surprised that whoever wrote this "alert" was allowed to move on to pen - fat red crayon would have been less surprising, along with an unrecognisable picture of a butterfly or something.

but they have no guns ?

Oh yes they have no guns.

What you on? The PSNI do have guns.
They are after all supposedly the organisation who passed this note on (thats if somebody hasn't gotten themselves a nice little PSNI block note).

circles

Is that the same kind of "supposedly" as used in the IRA have supposedly decomissioned all their weapons or a different one.

Circles, are you accusing the Sunday World of fabricating the threat and of forging a police note?

I'm not accusing anyone of anything Squared - I'm just trying to highlight the fact that just because there is a photograph of a piece of paper doesn't make this story true.
Anyone could get there hands on this paper and sent it for any number of reasons, and I find the glee with which some posters jump on these kind of uncorroborated stories as some kind of evidence for the great republican plot extremely narrow minded. Its almost as if people are wishing for this to be so.
Additionally - some people may have missed this, but even if everything is in order with this report people should also remember that republican does not automatically mean IRA. Such threats are to be 100% condemned, but so should cheap shots at laying this at the door of a particular organisation.

That sounds like an accusation to me.

How much more corroboration do you need? You are worse than Paisley, not even accepting photographs as proof. "Anyone could have written this note, we need proof the PSNI wrote it!" Please!

Did the Sunday World make up the visit from the PSNI that accompanied the forged note too? Did they imagine the whole thing?

Circles:

"...just because there is a photograph of a piece of paper doesn't make this story true".

Maybe not. But then again, if it was a forgery presumably the PSNI would be forced to investigate, or failing that they'd have to deal with the Ombudsman's office.

But then again is it not just easier to accept that a journalist has been threatened here?

The new and improved republican movement does not want to be embarrased by these kind of allegations.Its so pre decommission.

One thing that seems to be ignored in this discussion is that they still haven't found Martin O'Hagen's killers 4 years after he was killed. he wasn't killed by the RM but threats to journalists and newspapers who expose paramilitaries from either side are still happening.
As someone said earlier this is supposed to be a democracy and journalists shouldn't be threatened, (unless its with libel), whether you like the newspaper or their viewpoint.

That isn't exactly a hard thing to forge. "Oh lookie here, we have a photograph!!! This proves that it's real!!"

I guess with the loyalist rioting and petrol bombs, they're in the need for some anti IRA/SF PR!

"The new and improved republican movement does not want to be embarrased by these kind of allegations."

New and improved? No, these are murderers who are on the lam - doesn't matter if they're dressed in suits and talking polite.

They not only have the blood of military and police on their hands, they murder and torture their own people also. There was a woman on BBC from the border area, a catholic woman, heart broken because these sons of bitches murdered her husband, a local contractor. The nationalist community in Ulster harbors psychotics, nutbars and plain villains ... and Gerry Adams dressing up in a suit convinces nobody who knows what they have been about.

There will have to be a lot of real justice before anybody with any sense of integrity can take these political pimps seriously.

If there is no justice, and if Sinn Fein are being handed concessions over the head of the crimes they have committed - watch out - you're looking down a deep dark hole.

Conor Murphy is telling people in Blackpool that's its "time for the Unionists to get real" ... on whose terms? Theirs?

We'll see about that ... won't we.

The police at no time claimed that it was the ira who were the instigators of the threat.

The said it was 'republicans'

Obviously, the sw are in a win, win situation.

They were probably still embarrased about getting their story from the previous week, about decommisioning so wrong.

Perhaps the Sunday World could investigate those seeking grants under the Highlands & Islands scheme !!

I don't believe this story. We know that elements of hardline Unionism remain in the PSNI from the RUC-days and may be trying to wreck restoration of the institutions of the GFA. Remember how the trial of those supposedly involved in the "IRA spyring" collapsed when the charges were dropped? This spyring allegation caused the fall of the Executive and illustrates how the executive may have collapsed on the basis of a lie.

Hold on....They say "republicans". Surely that could mean CIRA or RIRA, rather than PIRA?

Guys, take a look at the left-hand corner of the photo: it's signed by an Ian Bloyney (sp?), who's rank at the PSNI is that of Inspector. Seems to me it would be veeerrrry easy to confirm that Mr. Bloyney is in fact a PSNI inspector (though I admit I'm American and still a bit naive about the cloak and dagger secretive nature of NI’s security forces), so I'd have to side with the Newsletter (a first for everything) -- the note's real.

That said, NO ONE -- not the PSNI, and not the Newsletter -- said it was PIRA. Rather, they said, fairly generically, that it was 'Republicans'. That could easily mean CIRA, RIRA, or even some newly-formed group that's just came about since last week's decommissioning.

Whoever it was, in this day and age there should never, ever be any intimidation against journalists (well, really, no one should be intimidated, but we have to start somewhere) who, when acting at their very best and most ethical, are simply trying to get the truth out.

Also, I understand that the spotlight is now on republicans for this specific act of intimidation, but given that another journalist was killed by loyalists some four years ago, perhaps the collective message should not involved finger pointing at one specific paramilitary community, but rather that intimidating journalists is absolutely, unequivocally wrong, and that it won’t be tolerated by either community.

that should read 'whose', not 'who's'

sorry -- ain't got much sleep lately.

slugfest let me uncomplicate it for you son ...

ex-provos issues the threat - ok ...

I know and not by acting like sherlock holmes

Some of the theories in here make craic after a bottle of Old Bush seem lucid!

Hmm. Perhaps it's Alistair Crowley, and not Alex_Crowley that's commenting?

AC,

Yes, I is stupid. Thanking you for helpimg mee to fgure it ouuut.

Now please point me to the exact paragraph and line in the article that reads 'ex-provos issues [sic] the threat'. Once you do that, please feel free to go back to being smug.

The Sunday World is Right, after all they were right about the ira only decommissioning half of their weapons ?

DeChastelin, Rev.Harold Good, Father Reid, Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, David Forde, Danny Kennedy, Reg Empey, Mark Durkan.

They are all wrong, the Sunday World is right.

Republican's did it again suckin american economy and going towards ressesion.....

Why are all these nationalist-loving yanks in here?

Do we go on American blogs to figure out their politics for them?

Might be an idea - we couldn't F things up any more than they already are in the land of the theoretically free.

Alex,

As a Yank I can tell you that I am here trying to understand what is happening in Northern Ireland. I, like many other Americans, am a descendant of and a cousin to the citizens of Northern Ireland. I'll skip the global village speech and just say that, to a great extent, we inherited our politics from you like you got your financing from us.

Finanacing via Boston for AK47's and plastic explosives to help turn the province into a nightmare - I'll agree on that

Well said, Alan. I take the side of neither north nor south, just try to understand the problems of both. At least we're interested.

The old American allegiance to Ireland was deaf, dumb, blind and stupid.

You bought the "freedom fighter" mythology and the "glorious Erin" BS and armed hoods and thugs, who used a lot of weaponry for criminal activities.

The plain facts of the Ulster case are this. The Scots have had connections in Ulster that pre-dated the planters. When the settlements happened there was precedent and there was right. They made Ulster prosperous and produced miracles in industry and ship building. The indigenous catholics couldn't compete and resorted to subversion, so naturally organizations came about to keep them in check.

Civil Rights marches were mainly about a people who lost in the commercial and civic arena, and who felt the winners owed them something. Maybe we did. Fairs fair ... there was discrimination, I admit it. But for these IRA thugs to drag the province into a nightmare of many decades, is a crime larger and more grotesque than anything the Protestants ever did to them by way of unfair treatment.

It's own thing to stage civil disobedience sit ins and protests, it's quite another to plant bombs in restaurants full of women and children, shoot parents on their doorstep in front of the children, and run what amounted to a mafia in their own neighborhoods.

I think the killing of McCartney in the Short Strand says it all. All he did was express an unwelcome opinion, and they jumped him and butchered him. They used plumber rods to rip him open from sternum to naval, then left him to bleed to death.

This is the level debased humanity that a lot of these people have sunk to. They aren't normal human beings with compassion and a conscience. If you look at them the wrong way, they will shoot before you can turn around. The crimes they have committed against ordinary, decent working class catholics remained to be fully exposed - and they will be.

This is what you Americans funded. You brought this horror on our heads with your money. If they hadn't had large influxes of cash it might never have reached the level it did.

Now you have caught on. Now you know that they back Hamas (there a wall murals on Falls that trumpet that). They are Marxists a lot of them and rabidly anti-American. Of course they don't admit it as long as the dumb old yanks are prepared to fork out the cash.

Even if there is a united Ireland, I don't want these scumbags running it. I reject their "socialism" and their gaelic pretentions. Tha's all a step back into the past. They are anochronisms ... dinosaurs ... but most of all they responsible for a catalogue of crimes that have yet to be addressed. And all of this ... why? Because they felt they weren't getting a big enough slice of the cake. Basically that was it. That's what started it.

Their campaign was immoral, exploitive of their own people, criminal at times and in no way, shape or form are they going to be able to simply morph into clean politicians.

The very fact that Murphy is over in England and refuses to apologize for Brighton is typical. Who the hell do they think they are? If you think the Unionists in the province are going to swallow their attitude and move on ... think again.

We're facing some kind of reckoning down the road. My feeling is that it won't be pretty.

Let me state for the record that I think the same way about loyalist organizations like the UVF, RHC etc and others. They are scumbags also.

All of these terrorists need to disappear and let catholic and protestant politicians WITH CLEAN HANDS come forward, and set the agenda for a new Ulster.

But all I can say is ... fat bloody chance!

Brian Boru and Slugfest have hit the nail on the head here by pointing out that there are Republican groupings other than the Provisionals.

However, this is a well established fact which is often missed by those who mean to make political capital out of such stories by attacking the Provisionals.

If it is the case that a member of the PIRA or someone associated with that group does intend to attack a journalist then I`d bet it is not known to that organisation`s leadership.

Given their very adept media management and their total reliance on their media strategy to forward their political project a physical attack on a journalist just doesn`t make sense.

I can immediately think of individual Republicans who that paper has had dealings with in the not so distant past, who would have more reason to have a personal grudge against individual journalists in the Sunday World than members of the Provisional Movement.

Alex, I hear the pain in your voice, even from many miles away, but rants about"you Americans" is no way to educate people here. use your talents to persuade.

I agree about murphy in GB; he's got quite a bita neck to go there and say those things. I'd show him the bricks myself. Anybody that after 9/11 and 7/7 thinks that is going to wash in the western world is outa touch. Those with blood on their hands, north or south, should not be in government.

Gotta head home from work now.

AC: "The plain facts of the Ulster case are this. The Scots have had connections in Ulster that pre-dated the planters. When the settlements happened there was precedent and there was right. They made Ulster prosperous and produced miracles in industry and ship building. The indigenous catholics couldn't compete and resorted to subversion, so naturally organizations came about to keep them in check."

Saddled with the Penal Laws and similar sumptory regulations, how could they compete? Likewise, you leave out the part about "to hell or to connacht." In modern terms, the Ulster plantation was an act of ethnic cleansing.

AC: "Civil Rights marches were mainly about a people who lost in the commercial and civic arena, and who felt the winners owed them something. Maybe we did. Fairs fair ... there was discrimination, I admit it. But for these IRA thugs to drag the province into a nightmare of many decades, is a crime larger and more grotesque than anything the Protestants ever did to them by way of unfair treatment."

And the burning of Catholic churches by Prod mobs, spear-headed by B Specials -- that was, what, a fraternity prank gone awry? Rev. Paisley exhorting his minions armed with nail-studded lengths of 2x4 a act of poor judgement?

AC: "It's own thing to stage civil disobedience sit ins and protests, it's quite another to plant bombs in restaurants full of women and children, shoot parents on their doorstep in front of the children, and run what amounted to a mafia in their own neighborhoods."

Its one thing to discriminate on the basis of religion, quite another to run riot and burn down churches unchecked by the police, since they are spearheading the mobs.

AC: "I think the killing of McCartney in the Short Strand says it all. All he did was express an unwelcome opinion, and they jumped him and butchered him. They used plumber rods to rip him open from sternum to naval, then left him to bleed to death. "

Kinda like Finucane, shot in front of his family by Prod Loyalist thugs, armed and supported by British intelligence.

"This is the level debased humanity that a lot of these people have sunk to. They aren't normal human beings with compassion and a conscience. If you look at them the wrong way, they will shoot before you can turn around. The crimes they have committed against ordinary, decent working class catholics remained to be fully exposed - and they will be."

Didn't you hear? Drug-dealing and the violence associated with it have become "an integral part of Protestant culture," per Senior orangeman Billy Mahwinney on Spotlight this evening. Have you not been watching the news? The Loyalist feuds ring a bell? Unionists don't need Republicans to be your demons -- you're quite capable of doing it to yourselves.

"This is what you Americans funded. You brought this horror on our heads with your money. If they hadn't had large influxes of cash it might never have reached the level it did."

You brought this on your heads with your discriminations, your anti-Catholic riots, your B Specials, your One Para. Were your hatred of the Catholics not so great, it might never have reached the level it did.

AC: "Even if there is a united Ireland, I don't want these scumbags running it. I reject their "socialism" and their gaelic pretentions. Tha's all a step back into the past. They are anochronisms ... dinosaurs ... but most of all they responsible for a catalogue of crimes that have yet to be addressed. And all of this ..."

No, you want the "good old days," when the Taigs knew their place -- the days of the Black and Tans, civilian reprisal and the British Empire.

"why? Because they felt they weren't getting a big enough slice of the cake. Basically that was it. That's what started it."

Why? English conquest, Puritan looting, British sumptory laws, Protestant discrimination. Basically that was it. That's what started it.

"Their campaign was immoral, exploitive of their own people, criminal at times and in no way, shape or form are they going to be able to simply morph into clean politicians. "

Their campaign was immoral, exploitive of the Catholic population of Ireland, later exploitive of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. Their leaders, hate-mongers and rabble-rousers at times, are not going to be able to simply morph into clean politicians.

AC: "We're facing some kind of reckoning down the road. My feeling is that it won't be pretty."

Enough of tweaking AC nose, for the nonce. time for the serious matters.

The fact of the matter is, AC, that N.I. is at a crossroads. As I have tried to point out above, we have parallel histories and mythologies, each a shadowy reflection of the other. You carry on how this is all the American's fault, to the exclusion of the Protestants of Northern Ireland, who, in your mythology, were simply uncaring but somehow unknowing and innocent. In mine, its all the Protestants and British who caused this vale of tears, with their discrimination and their bloody minded hatred. Maybe we're both right. Maybe we're both wrong. In the end sum, will it matter which?

Once I've unpacked, I can cite you chapter and verse of N. Irish leaders from at least Bollingbroke to Paisley, all punctuated with hatred and discrimination. I'm sure you could have your own litnay of quotes and deeds, equal but opposite.

Y'see AC, as much as I like to tweek noses, I'm gonna break this one down for you. Now, RIGHT NOW, none of those yesterdays matters, if only because neither side is ever going to agree who the hell started it and how and there is no way to correct them. The choice comes in on our tomorrows. I trust Paisley, big or small, as far as I can spit a Saracen. I'm sure you have some mild reservations about Adams of your own.

That said, there are only TWO games in town. Time is coming fast to pick one or the other. Question comes down to this, AC -- bottom line -- have we had enough of the f*****g "Patriot" Game or haven't we. I know my answer.

Good responses there cthulhu , but I won't dot all your i's or cross all your t's ...

I'm looking for sane middle ground here. An end to Orangism, an end to the Hibernian carry on ... all the symbols on both sides that relate back to the shite we have had to endure. Charge any hate monger who stands up on a soap box and make it stick. Have the laws enforced by police that are transparently non-secetarian, who understand what is at stake.

The middle ground as I envisage would wash their hands of the Paisleys and the Adams - would look instead for fresh blood, fresh vision. Men and women without the baggage of either triumphalism or rebellion, who can look each other level in the eyes and do business. Ulster deserves this. Its people deserve this.

What concerns me is that this movement isn't happening. The positions are still entrenched. Unionism is still dishing up the "no surrender" line and boneheads like Murphy haven't the grace, or even the common sense of humanity to express regret and humility for innocent lives lost and families ruined.

This province is bedevilled with pride. Just listen to a hard core Belfast boy talk ... the flattened vowels, the aggression written into every lilt ... it's one of the most menacing accents in the English language. It mirrors the aggression that flows like life blood under the surface of all our dealings. If he doesn't give me A - then fuck him - he's not getting B. Bloody minded, terse and exclusionary.

Maybe they need exposure to other cultures. Maybe it's too insular for the polarities to evolve into anything remotely complementary. The flag itself is emblematic of the attitude. I'll cut my hand off and throw it to shore, so I can beat the other bastards. It never ends.

All I know is this. I walk above it. Among my associates secetarianism is what makes it interesting. But it's self-aware secetarianism ... the secetarianism of people who have grown through it and let it go ... who have acquired enough critical distance to laugh at the antics of the boyos ... on both sides. That's my tribe. We wear our orange and our green with satirical under-statement. We know what it means and we turn it upside down for the hell of it. Because what matters more ... way more ... is the capacity to see it all for what it is ... a game. It's the ones who have played it and have grown beyond it that I love. They're the hope of Ulster if they weren't so fuckin jaded and spent less time in licenced premises.

Could hear the soundtrack kicking in half-way through that post Alex - would even have been a half-way convincing tale of someone who grew up and wised up if it weren't for your previous comments. If you're the middle of the road I don't think I'll be crossing to the other side any time soon.
Also wanted to put my earlier comments straight (they were written as I was running to catch a train and came out rather unfortunately). The essence of what I meant to say was that "republicans" is not a pseudonym for the IRA - if unionist posters haven't realised that by now then we really do have a long way to go.