Bowyer Bell Secret Army BBC 27.3.24

[Larry O'Hara]

Started to watch as the original film itself looked fascinating. Had to stop after 45 mins as the original film is interspersed with what I have called SPIJ: State Sponsored Pseudo Investigative Journalism. So mystery is created where there is none, scenes rearranged to fit the pseudo-narrative of this low grade spook effluent pipe. When McGuiness was alive media spin was that he was in IRA upper echelons (so what?) now hes dead the line is that he was probably compromised by the Brits to become an agent of influence.

I bet Bowyer-Bell’s daughter rues the day she let this little turd access her fathers files/films.

I am not saying there are not questions to be asked about McGuinness, but not by this little shit.

Does anybody know where you can see the original film, without spook commentary as here?

 

[Spymaster]

Had to stop after 45 mins as the original film is interspersed with what I have called SPIJ: State Sponsored Pseudo Investigative Journalism.

This acronym needs reviewing.

 

[JimW]

Started to watch as the original film itself looked fascinating. Had to stop after 45 mins as the original film is interspersed with what I have called SPIJ: State Sponsored Pseudo Investigative Journalism. So mystery is created where there is none, scenes rearranged to fit the pseudo-narrative of this low grade spook effluent pipe. When McGuiness was alive media spin was that he was in IRA upper echelons (so what?) now hes dead the line is that he was probably compromised by the Brits to become an agent of influence.

I bet Bowyer-Bell’s daughter rues the day she let this little turd access her fathers files/films.

I am not saying there are not questions to be asked about McGuinness, but not by this little shit.

Does anybody know where you can see the original film, without spook commentary as here?

Watched that last night; didn't come away with the impression the film was suggesting McGuinness was compromised, just that Bowyer-Bell and his producer were intelligence agency adjacent. Did I miss something?
Would also like to see the film itself without the framing.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

This acronym needs reviewing.

I’ll put it to the Committee

 

[The39thStep]

Most of it has been shown in clips on other documentaries and a full length showing was made at an Italian film festival. I think the BBC put it up more to highlight their own investigative journalism than to reveal anything about the IRA. There's an accompanying article on the BBC site .

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Most of it has been shown in clips on other documentaries and a full length showing was made at an Italian film festival. I think the BBC put it up more to highlight their own investigative journalism than to reveal anything about the IRA. There's an accompanying article on the BBC site .

BBC Investigative Journalism

 

[elbows]

Watched that last night; didn't come away with the impression the film was suggesting McGuinness was compromised, just that Bowyer-Bell and his producer were intelligence agency adjacent. Did I miss something?
Would also like to see the film itself without the framing.

I havent watched it but I read the article version. It made me too not want to watch the programme, and to desire the original film footage in full instead.

There are hints in that direction in the article for sure. eg:

........We showed the film to journalist and author Ed Moloney, among the foremost experts on the IRA..........

“Did they use it to recruit, not just Martin McGuinness, but other people who were in the film to become agents? That’s going to be one of the great unanswered questions of the Troubles I think.”

None of the IRA participants that we’ve spoken to say the material was used against them.

One source from the world of spooks told us: “Intelligence agencies hoover up any and all material. It is not for arresting purposes.

"The information goes into a drawer.

"Some drawers are never opened again. Some are.”

One startling fact: Days after filming concluded, an IRA delegation was flown to London for secret talks with the British Government.

The names of the IRA delegation are now well known: Chief of Staff Seán MacStiofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Seamus Twomey, Martin McGuinness, Ivor Bell and Gerry Adams, who had to be released from internment to attend.

Bell and Adams were the only members of the IRA delegation who had not been filmed, and, according to the filmmakers, watched by their enemy.

From Exposed: The true story of a lost documentary.

Impossible to get into murky spooky shit of any kind without suspicions popping up in such directions, but no reliable way to get to the bottom of them or distinguish them from the bullshit propaganda work of spooks. Humans often do shit that means they might in theory be compromised, but whether that was effectively exploited in any particular case is hard to get to the bottom of without busting open secret files.

 

[PTK]

This article states that extracts from the The Secret Army were broadcast in 2019 by the BBC (I assume only in Northern Ireland) in 2019. The article states that the director and co-author of the film was an agent of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that The Secret Army was broadcast twice in the USA “in full view of the British Embassy” (I am unsure what he means by that phrase).

The article suggests that Martin McGuinness was an agent of influence of the UK state. The claims that it make seem plausible to me.

The author of the article, Shane Paul O’Doherty, was a member of the Provisional IRA who was in prison for many years, and who came to reject the movement and embrace religion.

Martin McGuinness & Mossad Agent Zwy Herbert Aldouby

Excerpts from the 1972 American film about the Provisional IRA entitled “The Secret Army” were broadcast in September 2019 by the BBC Spotlight programme and showed Martin McGuinness an…

irishpeaceprocess.blog

 

[JimW]

The comment on McGuinness that left the strongest impression was Tony Devine choking up waxing lyrical about what a marvellous man he was.

 

[The39thStep]

This article states that extracts from the The Secret Army were broadcast in 2019 by the BBC (I assume only in Northern Ireland) in 2019. The article states that the director and co-author of the film was an agent of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that The Secret Army was broadcast twice in the USA “in full view of the British Embassy” (I am unsure what he means by that phrase).

The article suggests that Martin McGuinness was an agent of influence of the UK state. The claims that it make seem plausible to me.

The author of the article, Shane Paul O’Doherty, was a member of the Provisional IRA who was in prison for many years, and who came to reject the movement and embrace religion.

Martin McGuinness & Mossad Agent Zwy Herbert Aldouby

Excerpts from the 1972 American film about the Provisional IRA entitled “The Secret Army” were broadcast in September 2019 by the BBC Spotlight programme and showed Martin McGuinness an…

irishpeaceprocess.blog

What would have been the impact of McGuiness being 'an agent of influence of the UK state' ?

 

[PTK]

What would have been the impact of McGuiness being 'an agent of influence of the UK state' ?

I do not know.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

This article states that extracts from the The Secret Army were broadcast in 2019 by the BBC (I assume only in Northern Ireland) in 2019. The article states that the director and co-author of the film was an agent of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that The Secret Army was broadcast twice in the USA “in full view of the British Embassy” (I am unsure what he means by that phrase).

The article suggests that Martin McGuinness was an agent of influence of the UK state. The claims that it make seem plausible to me.

The author of the article, Shane Paul O’Doherty, was a member of the Provisional IRA who was in prison for many years, and who came to reject the movement and embrace religion.

Martin McGuinness & Mossad Agent Zwy Herbert Aldouby

Excerpts from the 1972 American film about the Provisional IRA entitled “The Secret Army” were broadcast in September 2019 by the BBC Spotlight programme and showed Martin McGuinness an…

irishpeaceprocess.blog

I can see why O’Doherty as a rejectionist would think that. A legitimate point of view: but do not accept a snide BBC hack has the right to even be in such a discussion

 

[Larry O'Hara]

What would have been the impact of McGuiness being 'an agent of influence of the UK state' ?

The implication is he would have pushed the IRA towards compromise. The Bishopsgate bomb (which I have written about elsewhere recently) may or may not fit into that hypothesis

 

[Larry O'Hara]

I havent watched it but I read the article version. It made me too not want to watch the programme, and to desire the original film footage in full instead.

There are hints in that direction in the article for sure. eg:







From Exposed: The true story of a lost documentary.

Impossible to get into murky spooky shit of any kind without suspicions popping up in such directions, but no reliable way to get to the bottom of them or distinguish them from the bullshit propaganda work of spooks. Humans often do shit that means they might in theory be compromised, but whether that was effectively exploited in any particular case is hard to get to the bottom of without busting open secret files.

Exactly: and the likes of McDonough and Peter Taylor are masters at allusion and insinuation

 

[Idris2002]

This film's from 1972, right? The worst year of the conflict, when everyone's doomsday clocks were running wild. . . which is what accounts for people apparently not covering their faces when the camera was on them. In a few months you would have expected to be lifted, dead or (anything's possible) victorious. So why bother masking up?

As for Marty "Krusty the Clown" McGuiness being more "Krusty Agent of the Crown" - this implies a level of organization and far-sightedness on the part of the crown forces which they not only did not possess but could not have possessed. How could you know, in 1972, that there would be a new political line in the Provos a decade later? And if you did have an asset that far inside, why not just use him for general devilment and sabotage of the enemy's operational capacity? In reality, the 'ra came very close to staging their own mini-Tet offensive (that's what the Marita Ann's arms were earmarked for) and were taking out city centres by the early '90s.

The spooks and securocrats may well have had contacts we don't know about with old Krusty - but I'd say he was likely using them as much as they may have been using him.

 

[PTK]

This film's from 1972, right? The worst year of the conflict, when everyone's doomsday clocks were running wild. . . which is what accounts for people apparently not covering their faces when the camera was on them. In a few months you would have expected to be lifted, dead or (anything's possible) victorious. So why bother masking up?

As for Marty "Krusty the Clown" McGuiness being more "Krusty Agent of the Crown" - this implies a level of organization and far-sightedness on the part of the crown forces which they not only did not possess but could not have possessed. How could you know, in 1972, that there would be a new political line in the Provos a decade later? And if you did have an asset that far inside, why not just use him for general devilment and sabotage of the enemy's operational capacity? In reality, the 'ra came very close to staging their own mini-Tet offensive (that's what the Marita Ann's arms were earmarked for) and were taking out city centres by the early '90s.

The spooks and securocrats may well have had contacts we don't know about with old Krusty - but I'd say he was likely using them as much as they may have been using him.

The possible IRA "Tet Offensive" would not have been anything on the scale suggested by the use of that term. It would not have involved actually taking control of villages or towns.

 

[Idris2002]

The possible IRA "Tet Offensive" would not have been anything on the scale suggested by the use of that term. It would not have involved actually taking control of villages or towns.

Hence the phrase "mini-Tet offensive".

"These are small, but the ones out there are far away."

 

[PTK]

Hence the phrase "mini-Tet offensive".

"These are small, but the ones out there are far away."

Sorry, I missed the "mini". Others tend to not use it.
The NLF controlled significant areas of South Vietnam at the time of the Tet Offensive, and had formed a Provisional Revolutionary Government. The situation in Ireland in the 1980s was not at all comparable. There had been a very large decline in support for the IRA. It might have made more sense to talk of a mini-Tet Offensive in 1972, when there actually were "no-go areas".

 

[Larry O'Hara]

The possible IRA "Tet Offensive" would not have been anything on the scale suggested by the use of that term. It would not have involved actually taking control of villages or towns.

You mean like most of Derry…

 

[Idris2002]

You mean like most of Derry…

Or most of Newry. Someone told me the following story once about living in Newry in the bad old days.

He got into a black taxi in which there was one other passenger. The taxi takes off, and the other guy starts chatting away to him. Individually, the questions he asked would have been innocent enough, but as they built up, my contact started wondering "what's this?" to himself. Afterwards, when the other guy had been dropped off, he asked the driver, "what was all that about?"

The driver - "oh don't mind him - but if I were you I wouldn't wear that police reserve shirt."

My contact - "but it's not a police reserve shirt, I got it from M & S, I'm not in the police reserve."

The driver - "well, to certain people round here it looks like a police reserve shirt."

 

[petee]

The comment on McGuinness that left the strongest impression was Tony Devine choking up waxing lyrical about what a marvellous man he was.

sure and didn't he go to mass every week now ...

 

[JimW]

sure and didn't he go to mass every week now ...

This was shortly after Devine had described his own knee-capping for unspecified transgressions.