The political and media storm whipped up by the Stakeknife affair has been so intense that it's hard to see far ahead or at all clearly. What look like people turn out to be trees and what looks like truth turns out to be lies.
So let's try eight key questions and see if their answers shine any light.
Q1: Since British intelligence told the British people that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and none are now to be found, is it reasonable to trust them with this Stakeknife story?
A1: Yes. But only if you are the kind of person who puts a tooth under the pillow when it falls out.
Q2: OK. But let's assume that the Stakeknife story is true and that we know the man's identity. Will we now be given the identity of his British intelligence handlers? After all, they directed Stakeknife on who to kill and who to leave alone.
A2: Unlikely. The rule is this – the paramilitaries are thugs, torturing and killing without mercy. We, British intelligence, may look like murderous thugs, but as acknowledged moral experts such as Sammy Wilson and Jeffrey Donaldson have pointed out we're really all about saving lives and showing compassion. George Orwell explained how it works in his novel 1984 – war is peace, hate is love, lies are truth.
Q3: Will all these revelations about torture and murder conducted at the behest of British intelligence create a political crisis in Britain? Or at least embarrass the government?
A3: Don't be silly. Granted, one of the major charges against Saddam Hussein was that he tortured and killed his own people – you may remember Tony Blair getting in an ethical lather about that. But this is the British government you're talking about. Yes, they went along with the torture and killings, but only reluctantly and only for the good of us all. See the George Orwell reference on A2 above for a summary of this school of political thought.
Q4: If Stakeknife had access to top IRA information since the 1970s, why wasn't the IRA crushed completely by, say, 1981?
A4: That is a good question. The easy answer is that British security forces couldn't move because to do so would have exposed Stakeknife – but that's also the stupid answer, since moving against paramilitaries is what informers are for. The more honest answer is one of two possibilities: (1) The IRA was, as Sammy and Jeffrey suggest, 10 times bigger and more powerful than we'd always thought and Stakeknife tip-offs prevented mayhem 10 times as lethal as what occurred.
Or (2) Stakeknife was relatively low in the IRA hierarchy and not privy to important information.
Q5: Why did some commentators seem rather pleased as they reported the Stakeknife affair? You'd think they'd be horrified at state collusion in killing.
A5: True. But if you've been writing for years about how awful the republicans are, what do you expect but cartwheels across the floor? Yes, yes, it's too bad about those chaps being tortured and killed, but they were nearly all republicans anyway and isn't it great to think of them now running around not knowing who to trust? Stand back, I'm going to do another leap.
Q6: Why did several reports stress that Stakeknife was a personal friend of Gerry Adams? Some even suggested that Stakeknife is in fact two people, with Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness the second one.
A6: This links to A5 above. Confusion and doubt are good things to sow at any point in the ranks of the enemy, but if you can sow doubt at the highest level – lead republicans to believe that men they've revered for decades are in fact tools of British intelligence – then you've detonated the equivalent of a dirty-nuclear bomb at enemy headquarters.
Q7: Since everyone knows the IRA war is over, why is there talk of the terrible damage the Stakeknife revelations have done to the IRA?
A7: It's called collateral damage. Had these revelations emerged at the height of the 'armed struggle' and proved true, the impact on physical force republicanism would have been incalculable. But not now. Now the idea is to stop political force republicanism. If Gerry Adams/Martin McGuinness/a friend of either could be shown to have betrayed their comrades and the entire movement over decades, that might work. And if Sinn Féin could be taken out of the political scene, wouldn't life be so much more comfortable for the other political parties, north and south?
Q8: Does Stakeknife exist?
A8: Ask the tooth fairy.
