Maybe it takes someone like Martin McGuinness to tell the slow learners in the dissident Republican community that the war is over.
It would seem that some of them are still so wedded to old philosophies that they have failed to notice the people have left them behind.
Addressing the dissidents in a major speech in Derry on Sunday last Martin McGuinness made the point: "When I j
oined the IRA in this city it was an army of the people - sustained by the people - supported by the people - and answerable to the people."
In the wake of the murder of Emmett Shiels in the city last week this is an important point. What strategy for Irish freedom was being pursued when a totally innocent 18 year old was shot down on Derry's streets? Is Whitehall quaking now that a few guys in Derry have guns?
For 25 years the Provisional IRA fought the British to a standstill. It had considerable support within the nationalist community long alienated from the sectarian statelet governed by bigots at Stormont.
But even people like McGuinness and Adams recognised that the war could only achieve so much so they had to pursue the remainder of their objectives politically. Hence the Good Friday Agreement.
So the question really boils down to this: Do the dissidents think they can achieve what a much better equiped and supported Provisional IRA could not?
If they answer yes to that question they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Finally, maybe they could tell us what their objective is and what strategy they are pursuing to achieve it. Shooting totally innocent young men has most of us totally confused.
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