The Stakeknife episode leaves more confusion than light. At first sight things seemed reasonably clear. A leading Provisional in charge of the 'Nutting Squad' at the very heart of the IRA was uncovered working for British intelligence. He was outed by the media and presented as the republican equivalent of Brian Nelson. However the alleged agent denied being Stakeknife and was found, apparently unmolested, living in west Belfast.
There are said to be "wheels within wheels" inside the secret services. The various levels manipulate each other in complex games and rivalries. Sections of the media work with agents who provide information that would otherwise be denied to them. Journalists become tools in wider games with information passing to and fro facilitating the needs of both parties.
Reporters are happy at being able to tap into security sources perhaps unaware that agents have cultivated them as valuable outlets for misleading propaganda. One example of how intelligence agents influence journalists, without actually recruiting them, is by placing informative articles in foreign media and drawing the journalist's attention to these. The journalist reads the said articles and then seeks confirmation from the agent, which of course is readily provided.
Among some loyalists and republicans it is felt the current aim of the intelligence service is to seek to undermine the credibility of paramilitaries and demonstrate that such people are unworthy of inclusion in political institutions. If their credibility can be undermined there is no need to accommodate 'undesirables' and problems about decommissioning and disbandment are removed at a stroke. Ordinary citizens don't like the idea of paramilitaries and criminals in government, but because the secret services are secret, people don't know what is really happening or the true intentions of these agencies although many would assume that intentions are honourable rather than criminal.
In Northern Ireland many nationalists almost inevitably criticise intelligence agencies and it is taken for granted that loyalists are little more than pawns of the security services in squalid games. However, loyalists seem almost paranoid about security force infiltration and in the early days at least were often aware of who exactly was serving whom.
Unionists have also been worried about elements within the security services acting for or against the overt policies of government.
As far back as at the early 1970s the security services were suspected of engaging in nefarious activities. Fred Holroyd, then an intelligence agent, later commented that: "The dirty tricks I am aware of involved all branches of the security forces. They were carried out on both sides of the border and ranged from the professionally disreputable to murder." As republicans argued, "when those who make the law break the law, there is no law". When the security forces stoop to the level of the paramilitaries they can foment, rather than destroy, paramilitarism.
What I found astonishing during the 1970s was the almost complete absence in the community of any sense of the need to engage in serious discussion about what is and is not acceptable from the security services. The main preoccupation of some politicians and clergy seemed to be self-preservation at all costs. Republicans concentrate upon exposing actions that would damage the Brits while unionists tend to defend or deny the same activities.
It amazes me why unionist politicians failed to highlight the connivance of the southern Irish authorities in the formation of the PIRA and on the whole remained strangely muted about this. Perhaps the British authorities were also implicated. Many accept the simplistic and outrageous but seductive idea that the end justifies the means and we must fight fire with fire.
A society divided against itself is a happy hunting ground for security services as well as for paramilitaries and hardline politicians. People can be easily manipulated against each other with internal divisions being exploited. Elements within agencies appear to develop private agendas with some sharing the perspectives of those they supposedly target. A means should now be found to curtail the illicit activities of agents but paramilitarism makes the niceties associated with what passes for democracy appear unhelpful when life itself becomes increasingly cheap.
