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The RIRA and the NIFC

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  • 11-03-2009 4:58pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 171 ✭✭


    The only way the RIRA can get its hands on weapons, funding and support anywhere is if a sizable support network exists outside of Ireland, and that has been from the US. When FBI/MI5 double agent David Rupert testified against Michael McKevitt regarding the Omagh bombing, he went into hiding and is now in the Federal Witness Protection Program. The way that Rupert started working with McKevitt was through becoming deeply involved in the National Irish Freedom Committee (NIFC) in the United States, a group that does not support the 1997 GFA.
    This is what the Chicago Chapter of the NIFC had to say, archived on http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/NEWS/april_2001.htm when Rupert turned in McKevitt for engineering the Omagh tragedy:

    PRESS RELEASE
    04/22/01 - 2:00 PM

    THE IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE - CHARLIE KERINS UNIT, CHICAGO
    Frank O'Neill, Chairman

    TREASONOUS ACTIONS


    The Chicago Chapter of the Irish Freedom Committee, Charlie Kerins Unit;
    condemns in the harshest terms the treasonous and despicable actions of
    former associate David Rupert.

    Baser and more reviled than even our historical oppressor, the informer
    and turncoat will live in infamy in the hearts of Irish men and women,
    wherever they may be, from now ever forward. The informer knows full well
    the price of his deeds.

    The Irish Freedom Committee will survive and continue on in its much
    needed work on behalf of the families of the brave men and women who have
    stood up to defend their native land against illegal foreign military
    operations.

    The fate of the informer is less certain.

    ENDS

    Contact:

    Frank O'Neill
    Charlie Kerins Unit, Irish Freedom Committee
    P.O. Box 11417
    Chicago IL 60611
    U.S.A.

    I think the associations between the NIFC and the RIRA speak for themselves at this point. What enrages me is the assumptive tone that Irish men and women care about the honor of a criminal who got ratted out for engineering the largest human tragedy of the Troubles. How many of them care I wonder? Three? Oh no...wait...they're all American. It needs to be reworded: Rupert will live on in infamy in the hearts and minds of NIFC Americans who are trying to fight a war on someone else's soil that has been long over, and killing innocent people as a result.

    The IFC on David Rupert's depth of NIFC involvement: http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/IFC_INFO/irish_echo_letter_re.htm

    The people in the USA who funnel support to the RIRA are all in the National Irish Freedom Committee; they rail against the provos as sellouts and brits at their yearly national banquet and their monologues are frightening at best. The RIRA would not exist if these people weren't funnelling support to members, for them to believe that there is still a fight going on that only clueless, rhetoric-addled Americans can fantasize about and a very small group of criminals in Ireland are using with different priorities in mind besides the welfare of the people of Ireland.

    The money, support, and weapons that the RIRA needs to implement terror does not come from Ireland, it has to be organised in a country where guns are legal and nobody understands or cares about Ireland to the point where terrorist networking can happen right under the noses of US police and authorities who don't know any better. And because these guys are white and Irish instead of middle eastern, they disappear into the background or are treated as instantly honorable by Americans who worship their heritage. America is as unwittingly neutral or friendly to RIRA and CIRA terrorists as Pakistan is to Al Qaeda, because there, the Irish can do no wrong.

    I don’t know who in the FBI is taking David Rupert's place to monitor RIRA activity in the National Irish Freedom Committee. It would be good to know if someone is doing that considering the RIRA re-arming and its new offensive. If there have not been any FBI operatives since Rupert, and people had gotten comfortable thinking problems in Northern Ireland were over, then the NIFC and RIRA are operating with impunity and the FBI doesn't know what's going on.

    There needs to be serious red flags on NIFC members who travel from the US internationally due to this new situation that has unfolded in the last few days; an immediate moratorium on NIFC member travel to the UK and Ireland needs to be raised, and the FBI needs to pick up and interrogate immigrant members of the NIFC and possibly revoke thier visas and deport them to Ireland to remain under the much more watchful eye of their countrymen in a nation which has made firearms illegal. The NIFC needs to flatly be declared a front organisation raising money for terrorism with its members barred from international travel and its Irish members deported.

    When I was a completely politically CLUELESS (and I mean stupid clueless) musician years ago, and had never been to Ireland let alone lived here, I played music with a friend who was a member. If I had known then what I knew now, I would have realised how associating with any of them on just a social level still ruined my rep as a good trad musician, because I am not Irish by upbringing. I feel filthy for what I passively accepted as other people's ideology, in utter clueless ignorance. Especially now that I have lived in Ireland for 3 years, I could not be further from that stupidity, and I'm not even fond of mainstream Republicanism.

    I didn't care for the politics of my bandmate and mostly ignored it, but I had made my views known to his associates when Omagh happened; I terminated relations with them when they celebrated the Omagh bombing as a 'victory' at the local bar- I was appalled. As a supporter of the GFA in that community at the time, I was in the minority. I split paths with them and my musical arrangements kept getting ripped off by their ever-popular party band while I was left playing crappy gigs. Oh yes, that I remember, as well as all the little NIFC mini-fundraisers the band were having for 'political prisoners' who I find out when I moved here, are nothing more than scumbags and murderers operating outside the peace agreement and outside the law.

    But beyond my little bitternesses and personal beef, 2 innocent kid soldiers and a good, decent policeman up here are now dead, 2 clueless pizza guys in hospital, and I am enraged, appalled and feeling utterly betrayed. And I am also ashamed to know that if it weren't for clueless idealists in my country who support these criminals, using misplaced, outdated ideology as a front for a criminal agenda, there would be no RIRA. They would have been ferreted out and nabbed a long time ago without US support and money.

    lox.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    I would say they get most of their money from illegal activities on both sides of the border. Arms could well come from IRA dumps. Had heard of a few senior IRA members defecting who would know were the arms are and have easy access to them.

    However I would think some support, finances and maybe even arms would come from the US.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,953 ✭✭✭✭kryogen


    K-9 wrote: »
    I would say they get most of their money from illegal activities on both sides of the border. Arms could well come from IRA dumps. Had heard of a few senior IRA members defecting who would know were the arms are and have easy access to them.

    However I would think some support, finances and maybe even arms would come from the US.



    sure isnt that what they were doing in that documentary a few years ago, think it was called "The Devils Own" :p


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 259 ✭✭Veni Vedi Vici


    kryogen wrote: »
    sure isnt that what they were doing in that documentary a few years ago, think it was called "The Devils Own" :p

    Richard Gere should have one an oscar for his rendition of the northern accent. :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,370 ✭✭✭GAAman


    Richard Gere should have one an oscar for his rendition of the northern accent. :rolleyes:

    I think he deserved the oscar for making himself look like brad pitt

    :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 171 ✭✭Loxosceles


    K-9 wrote: »
    I would say they get most of their money from illegal activities on both sides of the border. Arms could well come from IRA dumps. Had heard of a few senior IRA members defecting who would know were the arms are and have easy access to them.

    However I would think some support, finances and maybe even arms would come from the US.


    The problem is, other non-defecting Provos would also know where dumps were, or else if they knew that a dump had been raided before decommissioning, they would go on a private hunt for the culprits. It would be very difficult for dissidents to operate here unnoticed by other trained operatives until enough time had elapsed for the ops to get lazy. Now they're vigilant so the window for dissidents to operate has gotten a lot smaller.

    Essentially it is far easier to get Americans to funnel 'aid' money to the RIRA 'political prisoners' for 'musical instruments' with a bunch of flowery rhetoric and lies than it is to raise money through contraband sales and robberies without the Provos noticing, or raid a Provisional arms dump without the Provos noticing. I've seen a few NIFC 'fundraisers' in my hometown raise a couple grand just playing music and selling beer for a 'good cause'. The resources provided from the US are considerable, they are done under the nose of the law, and it takes only one rich NIFC member in the States and some fundraisers to do it.

    I shipped 700 pounds of my personal effects to Dublin when I moved house to Ireland, and the plastic wrap was not removed and all the boxes remained sealed. I didn't have anything illegal but that's how easy it is to ship _anything_ to Ireland as 'personal effects' cargo without the law noticing.

    I'm just saying it's ten times harder to illegally acquire the same resources here that can be gotten in the US with relatively little effort, and with as few members as they actually have, it's probably the major resource.

    I really think the FBI needs to step up to the plate and make the same effort that MI5 and the Gardaí would be making here.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Loxosceles wrote: »
    The problem is, other non-defecting Provos would also know where dumps were, or else if they knew that a dump had been raided before decommissioning, they would go on a private hunt for the culprits. It would be very difficult for dissidents to operate here unnoticed by other trained operatives until enough time had elapsed for the ops to get lazy. Now they're vigilant so the window for dissidents to operate has gotten a lot smaller.

    Essentially it is far easier to get Americans to funnel 'aid' money to the RIRA 'political prisoners' for 'musical instruments' with a bunch of flowery rhetoric and lies than it is to raise money through contraband sales and robberies without the Provos noticing, or raid a Provisional arms dump without the Provos noticing. I've seen a few NIFC 'fundraisers' in my hometown raise a couple grand just playing music and selling beer for a 'good cause'. The resources provided from the US are considerable, they are done under the nose of the law, and it takes only one rich NIFC member in the States and some fundraisers to do it.

    I shipped 700 pounds of my personal effects to Dublin when I moved house to Ireland, and the plastic wrap was not removed and all the boxes remained sealed. I didn't have anything illegal but that's how easy it is to ship _anything_ to Ireland as 'personal effects' cargo without the law noticing.

    I'm just saying it's ten times harder to illegally acquire the same resources here that can be gotten in the US with relatively little effort, and with as few members as they actually have, it's probably the major resource.

    I really think the FBI needs to step up to the plate and make the same effort that MI5 and the Gardaí would be making here.

    Fuel smuggling, AHEM! If they were into that sort of thing :p is extremely lucrative, far more than a few fundraisers in the USA.

    On the arms dumps, it would be handy to have an ex Provo Quarter Master General or 2 in your ranks?

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 171 ✭✭Loxosceles


    K-9 wrote: »
    Fuel smuggling, AHEM! If they were into that sort of thing :p is extremely lucrative, far more than a few fundraisers in the USA.

    On the arms dumps, it would be handy to have an ex Provo Quarter Master General or 2 in your ranks?

    I'm assuming that the scumbags have an ex provo quarter master general in their ranks then, it would make acquiring things easier, agreed.

    Fuel smuggling is a huge racket around Derry for heating oil. They steal it off you and sell it back to you cheap. The illegal petrol stations are shut down, I heard, too visible, but heating oil can be stored anywhere and delivered to the home in the big 40-litre jugs. OK, so that can make a pile of dosh too. But the fundraisers, moral support and all those stupid christmas cards from the NIFC for 'political prisoners' has to be worth something then. And, come to think of it, reporting fundraising income from the US as larger amounts than it actually is might be a great way to launder illegit money made here.

    Come to think of it, all the US fundraising for PSF during the Troubles could have reported larger amounts as well, given bank turnovers and other scams. Ew. Not going there.


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