McGuinness has been threatened by dissident Republicans. Presumably he's now some kind of weird Michael Collins re-incarnation in their heads. Word by Storm dissects dissent Republican strategy with an unflinching eye over on the Cedar Lounge Revolution. Basically, he doesn't think they've got one.
But perhaps they don't need a strategy to destabilise SF and through SF, the Good Friday Agreement. Splinty sets out the potential logic,
"What anti-Agreement republican activity does..... is to ask the question “Which side are you on?” Do you, in essence, support the state against republicans, no matter how deluded you think those republicans may be? Imagine this being asked to a panel at a debate. It wouldn’t be a difficult question for an RSF member, who would simply answer No. It wouldn’t be a difficult question for a member of the SDLP, which has been collaborating with the state for decades, and who would simply answer Yes. The leftist on our imaginary panel would huff and puff and say that this was the wrong question, and we should really be talking about water rates. But for a PSF politician? Totally committed to the peace process, yet subjectively unwilling to openly pledge loyalty to a partitionist settlement, or even to recognise that that’s what the settlement is. For that reason, it’s still problematic to support the state against republicans – that’s why they don’t say they’re defending the state, they say they’re defending the Good Friday Agreement."
But the question that won't go away for me now is more pragmatic - who is it, exactly, that is giving McGunness the legitimate protection he needs? The State he fought? Or the supposedly disarmed organisation he once headed? The dissidents don't have to actually shoot him to undermine him.
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