You bombers all look the same

Resolved: that a clear signal that something is not true is provided when that something is preceded by the words "the British government has recently learned that..." Saddam wasn't shopping at the Mall of Africa's Nukes'R'Us, and there wasn't a Real IRA bombmaker in the West Bank teaching Palestinian extremists how to make bombs. Frankly, we are kicking ourselves for attaching the remotest credence to the original story, knowing its provenance in the English Sunday newspapers. But we did note at the time the convenient distraction the story would have provided from the Real IRA trial in Dublin [latest claim of star witness: he was forgetting some of the key details of the people he was spying on, and suggested that the FBI/MI5 hypnotise him to improve his memory].

Anyway, the English Sunday newspapers were making an accurate statement about the Real IRA bomber, if you follow the White House definition of accuracy -- because the source of the tip to the Israelis to arrest him (and presumably the leak to the papers) was British Intelligence. It turns out that the arrestee has a completely credible explanation for his activities: he's a member of an Irish-Palestinian solidarity group which organises peaceful cultural exchange activities. He's also (not that this explains why he'd be in the West Bank) an Irish language enthusiast, which seems to have contributed to some confusion about his name: Sean O Muireagain. [in evidence of blatant anti-Irishism, Blogger won't print the accents on the letter a in his name]. The British media have been using the English version of the name, John Morgan.

Sean's only real mistake was to carry the passport of his official country of residence, the United Kingdom. This put him in the position of being locked up in a foreign country on the word of his country of citizenship, which as one can easily see, somewhat undercuts the rights that a citizen overseas would normally have. He is eligible for an Irish passport, and if he had been carrying it, then Irish diplomatic officials would have been notified about his arrest. It's an open question what would have happened next: seeing the Northern Ireland residency, our lads could have just phoned Belfast, asked what's the story with this Morgan lad, and taken their word for it. But after the fact, the Republic certainly gets to look good, as a focal point of efforts to get him released.

Update: Sean has been deported. And the GUBU blog cites newspaper reports that Sean did have an Irish passport.