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nonrandomstring | 10 months ago

My childhood was in the 1970s and 80s when the 'Troubles' [0] affected Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. There were a dizzying number of factions, paramilitaries, volunteer groups, splinter groups... In those times it was rather common for killings and other actions to be mis-claimed, or tactically denied, with specious bomb threats or actual terror acts blamed on a different group. It was a very complex situation, as smouldering war zones usually are. Eventually the leaders from various camps developed codewords and protocols, so that for example the IRA or UVF could message MI5 and have a bomb warning taken seriously, or properly attributed in reporting. Many things that happened in those days were not at all clear cut and remain unknown to this day who really did what. Based on this I would counter that clarity is the exception.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

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