The main strategy now, since collusion between British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries can no longer be denied, appears to be to dilute the meaning of ‘collusion’ so that everybody and nobody is to blame. There was a particularly risible example of this on Channel 4′s website after the Da Silva report came out:
“The word collusion is a strange one in Northern Ireland. Collusion took place on multiple levels: there was collusion between the security forces and loyalist groups; collusion between the Irish government of the early 70s and the Provisional IRA; and there was a kind of collusion between mainstream society and the sectarianism that infested it.
“Look at Northern Ireland now: the whole state is systemically based on collusion: the population, or most of it, has made a decision that colluding with one’s enemies, regardless of the heinous crimes they’ve committed, is fundamentally worth it.
“Middle class people who didn’t carry guns could collude with attitudes, jokes, institutional practices, that sustained the conflict waged by those who, for whatever reason, did carry guns – who often colluded with each other.
“And now, the Queen has met Martin McGuinness, and the husband of former Irish president Mary McAleese is reputed to play golf with Jackie McDonald, head of the UDA. These are kinds of collusion – and a very good thing too, most would say.”
http://www.channel4.com/news/pat-finucane-and-the-collusive-state
Much of the response to Smithwick is in a similar vein. Even if there was a Provo mole in the Gardai who set up the two RUC officers to be killed, that doesn’t amount to ‘Garda collusion’ unless it was tolerated by the force in general; there was almost certainly a British government mole in the IRA who set up the men killed at Loughgall, that doesn’t mean the Provos were ‘colluding’ with the SAS.