Dissident republicans need to be stamped out like troublesome ants – but it should be a Loughgall strategy, not a Lurgan episode.
In the late Eighties, eight top East Tyrone IRA men were ambushed by the SAS when the Provos attacked the village police barracks in Loughgall, Co Armagh.
A few years earlier in Lurgan, three unarmed IRA men were shot dead at a security forces checkpoint by a specially trained police unit.
For the benefit of all in the Irish community, MI5 needs to feed intelligence on the movement of known dissident republican gunmen and bombers.
When the Real and Continuity IRAs set off on their next missions, let these armed dissidents run slap bang into an SAS ambush … no prisoners, no martyrs – just dead vermin.
All it needs is a few dissident republican nutters to murder a Unionist MLA or MP, and Stormont will be on the slippery slope.
The 1982 Assembly never stood a chance of producing a power-sharing solution because the IRA had murdered top Unionists Rev Robert Bradford and Edgar Graham.
Their deaths ensured Unionists would never work with nationalists.
Dissident republicans are like ants. If you don't immediately to crush them, you'll have an ant hill on your doorstep in no time.
If you create a major fuss over killing the ants, 50,000 will come to their funerals. The troublesome ants must be eliminated properly.
When the eight Provos were caught with smoking guns at Loughgall, Sinn Féin's propaganda machine was left toothless in calling for an inquiry.
This was a legalised 'shoot to kill' policy by the SAS. Many will breathe a sigh of relief if the two Real IRA gunmen who butchered the two squaddies in Antrim were shot dead on their way to their next murder.
The Republic has its role, too, in the defeat of dissident republicans. Given the terrible financial toll of the credit crunch, the last thing it needs are looney loyalists setting off Dublin and Monaghan-style bombs.
Internment may have been a disaster in the North, but it has always worked against republicans in the South.
And there must be a cross-border hot pursuit policy. Irish Defence Forces and Gardai should be able to hound dissidents all the way up the Falls Road if necessary.
Likewise, the PSNI, MI5 and SAS should be allowed to hunt dissident republican terror gangs all the way to the beaches of Cork. There should not be anywhere on this island safe for dissidents.
Terrorists should know that every time they go out on a mission, they will be shot dead.
Their political representatives and mouthpieces need to realise every time they open their cheepers, they will be interned in the Republic.
The South needs to open a Guantanamo Bay for dissidents – and the British should be able to send dissidents caught in the North to the South for holding until all terror groups have been silenced for good.
Meanwhile, can we expect the British Army to parade through the Derry streets carrying the bones of deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness when he dies?
And why not? Sure a party of Southern squaddies bore the reliquary of popular saint Therese of Lisieux when her bones recently visited the Republic.
Will Northern Catholics not get the chance to pay their respects to the reliquary? That would be a unique sight in the North – Orange Order or Masonic peelers or Protestant soldiers carrying the bones of a Catholic saint.
And when Big Ian Paisley – the ex-First Minister is finally 'called home', hopefully he'll get a George Best-style state Stormont funeral.
I know quite a few British squaddies would jump at the chance to carry Marty's coffin.
That would be another historic symbol of the peace process – British troops in full ceremonial uniform bearing the tricolour-draped coffin of a top Shinner boss.
