Be careful: Jim Cusack May Be A Member Of The IRA

Wanted: 

Jim Cusack-armed with a pencil and considered dangerous. Approach with caution. 

Jim Cusack, a scribe who is employed by the Irish Independent, hired only to offload lies and dirt upon Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams, is on a winner for now, for what he writes does not even need to be true which is the only version of truth he needs; though he may be a double agent and actually be a member of the IRA. That thought aside, take this statement last week by Garda Commissioner, Noirin O'Sullivan, in response to a query from Sinn Fein: “An Garda Siochana hold no information or intelligence to support the assertion of Jim Cusack that the Provisional IRA still maintains its military structure or confines any criminal activities to fuel laundering, cigarette smuggling or counterfeiting". 

Now that seems pretty clear to me and they, above all shades of blue, would be happy to think otherwise and act upon it with a historical zeal. Her statement can only be true because historical prejudice alone would have encouraged her to say otherwise given a chance; in other words she had no choice but to stand with this particular truth for it was bigger than the Gardai could ever prove otherwise.  But Jim Cusack, driven by the underlying tenets of what the Irish Independent considers ‘ethical journalism’ writes in their paper, and here is an insight into gutter journalism no matter what the optics: ‘Provo criminals haven’t gone away’ and published on the 22/2/2015. Lets look a little closer of what is between the lines of this fairy tale:

Cusack’s usual throwback for proof is never a named Garda only 'Gardai sources,' which can be pretty much mean anybody, dead or alive. This is the pedigree of journalism used by the National Enquirer, The Daily Mirror/Sun and more. Suspects are never given a name, God forbid should they be sued for their lies, but so far that thin line still holds in the main, though Gerry Adams has won in the courts against them before, and I dare say will again. 

The Gardai sources are heavily cited in this article with the absence of any proof, concrete or otherwise. Then there is the ‘local sources’ as well to back up the Gardai ones.  Then Jim tells us that the Crossmaglen Police station (I suspect he is dripping in frustrated saliva here) is a fortress type only seen in Bagdad or Kabul, with a 30-foot high concrete blast wall and designed to prevent ‘proxy’ or suicide bombers. Being almost 120 years old doesn't help either.

Apart from the fact that there has been mooted talk in high circles for some time now that this Police station was going to be removed piece by piece and lovingly re-assembled and restored in the Belfast museum as a relic and historical reminder of the troubles, Jim was fixed elsewhere; nobody bothered to tell him either that there was never any suicide bombers, proxy or poxy otherwise, recorded from both sides of the divide since records began. 

Despite all this, Jim, in a last gasp coy effort, and despite Commissioner O’ Sullivan’s strong denials, said his paper asked her if she was ‘personally’ satisfied that the IRA no longer exists or was involved in fuel laundering and cigarette smuggling.  The last line of the article coyly suggests without actually ‘suggesting’ by ending with this: ‘There was no response at the time of going to print.’

I heard though from ‘Gardai and local sources’ that she had joined Gerry Adams and their two dogs on a trampoline, both naked I might add, (though perish the thought) singing aloud that rather optimistic song: “We're on the one road, maybe the wrong road, but we're on the road to God knows where.” Those same 'informed sources' tell me that ‘Edna’ Kenny knows exactly where that road is.

Barry Clifford