Isn't it incredible how past events can be distorted, and
the truth submerged as history is rewritten.
The Northern Ireland conflict ended just a few years ago,
but already the 'experts' are at it, expressing views which
are often at odds with the truth.
The recent internal Army document which purported to examine
the British Army's 37-year involvement in the conflict is
an example of this.
The document was greeted with a lot of media attention, indeed
bordering on the hysteria, which implied that senior army
officers had admired the Provisional IRA as one of the most
effective and efficient terrorist organisations in history.
Perhaps, but the document appeared to ignore the cruelty,
the brutality and the gangster-type activities of the IRA,
as it exerted its hold through terror on the areas it controlled,
and from where ruthless attacks were carried out on the people
of Northern Ireland, and the institutions of the State.
According to contributors to BBC programmes, the Army failed
to defeat the IRA, but what they failed to stress was that
the terrorists certainly did not win.
The document also downplayed the enormous contribution of
the locally-based security forces who played such a key role
in the campaign against the IRA and its fellow travellers.
The sacrifice of so many Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers,
and also their comrades in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and
its Reserve, were key components in the heroic defence of
the people of Northern Ireland.
The document also omitted to stress the quiet bravery, the
discipline and the steadfastness of the vast majority of Ulster
people in the face of the relentless and ruthless IRA campaign.
There were relatively few members of the loyalist community
who became engaged in terrorist activity and who let the side
down by deplorable actions.
But the vast majority remained law-abiding, and allowed the
security forces of the State to do the job for which they
were trained and equipped.
It must also be stressed that it was not the fault of the
ordinary British soldier serving in Northern Ireland, that
the IRA campaign was not crushed quickly and thus saved thousands
of lives.
The Army was never allowed to fight the war in Northern Ireland
the way it had been trained, and fought with one hand behind
its back.
It also had to fight an insidious propaganda war, maintained
by local sources, aided and abetted by their friends in Irish-America,
and the Sinn Fein clubs in mainland Britain.
In spite of all this, the British triumphed in the end against
the IRA which failed completely to break the spirit of the
majority in Northern Ireland, and also failed utterly in its
objective to force the people and province into a united Ireland
against their will.
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