IN the film Apocalypse Now there is a depiction of a night battle somewhere in the jungle highlands of Vietnam, with explosions, gunfire, smoke and flames.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of combatants are involved. But when soldier after soldier is asked who is the officer commanding operations, nobody knows.
The battle has taken on a life of its own and the participants are being carried along, willy nilly, on its momentum. It may continue for days, weeks or months until its inherent dreadful energy is depleted.
Similarly, the street violence that has now gripped Northern Ireland is like a coil of burning magnesium almost impossible to extinguish until it burns itself out.
Its oxygen is anger and, after the potent scenes witnessed at Garvaghy Road and in the lower Ormeau, the mere presence of an RUC uniform is enough to provide the spark.
An Orange sash or a Lambeg drum will also do the job, and if the programme of parades for the rest of this summer goes ahead, there will be plenty of occasions when all these inflammable ingredients are transported into and through nationalist neighbourhoods.
The nightly scenes of conflict are uncannily reminiscent of 1968, 1969 and 1970 on the streets of the North with, the significant difference that a whole new generation of Catholic youth is involved, being radicalised, made militant, learning to regard violence wrought upon them, and by them, as an acceptable norm.
The violence of loyalist youth (and adults) earlier this week was intended to make a specific point. It was devastatingly successful but at enormous cost to Northern society, economically, politically and psychologically.
The violence of nationalist youth is different in kind. It reflects their ever present sense of alienation from the state they live in, their constant awareness of being, somehow, second class citizens. This simmering resentment is inevitably intensified and caused to erupt by events like those at Garvaghy Road and the lower Ormeau.
Allegiance, even of the disaffected and reluctant, may sometimes be won by fairness, generosity and reason it cannot be beaten into youth by RUC boots, batons and plastic bullets. But at this time the mistakes made in the late 1960s and before seem destined to be repeated.
History is a nightmare from which Northern Ireland seems unable to awake (to paraphrase James Joyce). As Mr John Hume constantly repeats. "The basis of order in any society is agreement on how you are governed on your system of government." Unionists are undoubtedly aware of this general principle, but appear to fear the process (in effect the so called "peace process") of seriously seeking such agreement.
Soldiers are now patrolling Belfast again on "top cover" that is, standing in open topped jeeps with rifles pointing out at the ready. The approach roads to nationalist areas are strewn with rocks and smouldering embers. The stage is set for the ritual evening combat and the re-militarisation of Northern Ireland is, well on the way to completion.
The "peace process" may be temporarily in ruins. But the political process will, by definition, continue. The multiparty talks will resume at Stormont next week, but their credibility has been gravely undermined.
There is a real danger that these already labyrinthine contacts will decline into irrelevance unless Senator George Mitchell can pull them into focus on some real and urgent issues. His diplomatic efforts, however, are likely to be transcended for the immediate future by the politics of the street violence.
The role of Sinn Fein has, ironically, been made immensely more crucial by the unionist/Orange coup at Drumcree. "Reports from the grassroots of the nationalist communities indicate that the efforts of the party's local representatives to restrain the youth and maintain calm are finding little response.
But a radical initiative such as the drawing of Sinn Fein into the political dialogue could undoubtedly stabilise the situation. Of the twin problems with this the governments' firm requirement of a formal IRA ceasefire declaration, and the fact that unionists would walk out the ceasefire issue is the least problematic.
There is a sense of a new watershed in the Northern dilemma but nobody can yet assess how much further the treadmill will take the spate of civil strife before new political directions become clear.
The most depressing thing about the Drumcree/Garvaghy debacle is that it was entirely predictable and indeed frequently predicted in the aftermath of last year's trouble. The suggestion of an independent review body on parades was raised then, but met no response from the British government.
Well placed political sources continue to insist that senior British ministers persuaded the Prime Minister, Mr John, Major, to accede to political pressure being brought on the Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, to back down to unionist demands on Drumcree.
If that is indeed the case, it means that the Chief Constable was given no chance to test his competence, and that of his force, to handle the situation. Whatever about Mr Major's well meaning political intentions on the Northern crisis, his competence and judgment must come into question.
All that has been achieved in the past week is that passions and prejudices have been raised on all sides. Sectarian tensions have been inflamed the militarists on all sides have been strengthened and the prospects of political accommodation and eventual settlement are in tatters.
Increasingly, the analogy of a battle with no commanding officers seems appropriate, and the North is at the mercy of intense mass emotions swinging events out of control.